If God is Love why He sends people to hell?

Jesus Comforting

Ali Sina

Ali Sina is the author of Understanding Muhammad and Muslims.

81 Responses

  1. Phoenix says:

    Nishant said:How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death?”//

    Yes,he did say that but how does any of that imply “all the neurological activity stops within few seconds of cardiac arrest”? There is no mention of seconds or any specific time contained in that statement.A little honesty please.
    ===
    we donot declare a person dead just because of a flat ECG, otherwise whats the need of CPR//

    I did not deny CPR is used.Attack what I say and not what you wish I said.A persistent flatine despite CPR attempts is a clear indication of death.
    ===
    Well, Certainly they are not required for brain death//

    Exactly,you would have gleefully hidden that from me and pretended only EEG’s and fMRI’s can determine brain death.

    //but as I have shown earlier in pim von lommels research paper, he wrote: “How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death?”. His entire research depends upon assumption that NDE’s occur when brain is not functioning and yet he doesn’t do a single study to ascertain that in his study subjects!!!//

    In pursuit of truth,it’s important to recognize contradictions.You agreed with me that a clinical criteria to determine brain death can also be sufficient,and yet you insist on a single study.What study do you still want? EEG and fMRI data?But you already agreed that a clinical criteria suffices.
    ===
    Again you seem to be confused about cardiac arrest and brain death and medicolegal criterias for declaring a person dead. Cardiac arrest doesn’t mean brain death! And hence he should have done some investigation to ascertain the functioning of brain//

    I made no confusion between clincial death and brain death,albeit cardiac arrest can lead to brain death.
    ===
    Brain death is irreversible and nobody comes back to consciousness after brain death.However in cardiac arrest the patient is not brain dead, that means his brain is alive and that’s why he should have looked at whats happening in the brain during the study with the most advanced investigation available in his hospital to ascertain brain function in detail and not leave us with so much doubt in his study.//

    Not quite true.There is a small window period that allows for some reversal,provided the damage to the brain and brain stem is not too severe.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21494112
    Even a single case is enough to falsify such a universal statement.
    ===
    for who writes an anecdotal story in the middle of a research paper that too of an event that was not measured by the parmeters and was not part of the main study?. I think this only represents extreme bias on the part of Pim Von Lommel favouring NDE’s//

    Perhaps you misunderstand the the reasons for the anecdote.See, it’s an account of veridical perception that counts as supporting evidence.Belittling the evidence is not a counter refutation.
    ===
    or his study is not a Survey and he uses null hypothesis and validates or invalidates it with statistical methods like-pearson’s test, t test etc.I did not understand your bus analogy. You see I can write a finding in 10,50,100… etc number of patints in controls and subject groups and conclude them conforming or antagonizing the current knowledge on the subject. Sample size and how I arrived at it will tell my peers the power of my study, where an underpowered study means that they can be reasonably skeptical about the values arrived at after statistical analysis in the study. It will also help in comparing similar studies in past and will help in arriving at the minimal sample size for future studies. A well designed study will always mention it//

    This is an example of moving the goal posts.It’s a common theme in your post.Unless you have evidence proving otherwiswe, the null hypothesis remians valid.
    ===
    The 2 are mutually exclusive.” In the next sentence you contradict yourself://

    I’m sorry I must have missed that one.Declaring it a contradiction does not make it so.Pin point the contradiction.
    ===
    The words “suggest” and “further studies” does in no way imply lack of evidence.On the contrary,the paper reports favorable results.Science papers especially,do not conclude absolute proof because a) science cannot produce absolute truth b) all facts or facoids are contingent and may be overturned as new data is acquired and c) science and knowledge would stagnate if all positive findings were concluded to be irreversible.
    ===
    I had read the abduction/ufo reports and the studies and I find considerable analogy in subjective interpretation of ‘paranormal’ phenomenon in them and those who report NDE’s. Do you know they have studies and organizations too, like NDE’s people have, they too are not accepted widely in mainstream scientific literaturetc. You will find considerable anology also in skeptics and the debates also are so peculiarly similar (Please read them to understand what I mean)//

    All comparisons are ultimately false,some fail quicker than others.The aim of a false comparison is to make proposition Q look as ridiculous as possible without providing evidence or a deduction for support.This is done by inventing an absurd proposition P then claiming it is equivalent to Q.But you must proof that P and Q share the same properties and characteristics,or else your argument fails under several fallacies,namely straw man,red herring,false analogies/comparisons.
    ===
    Incorrect, its not just the disorders but the anatomy , physiology, biochemistry etc is also studied and not just disorders//

    Regardless,NDEs serve to demonstrate mind/body existential indpendence.Your examples would restrict NDEs to physiological and biological explanations.
    ===
    Please read my comment in context. Well , we all publish articles in journals, If you are qualified enough then only the technicalities of presentation and of the study is reviewed and the article gets published. The contents are never reviewed thoroughly and is done by 1 or 2 editors as a part time of their clinical practice. If you or your PG guide is well established your article gets published immediately. It is after publication that your study is debated and thoroughly peer reviewed. If indeed many such researches bring about a positive finding then a metanalysis is done and in annual meetings of associations or such occasions expert committee members write the guideline, its level of evidence and grade of recommendations//

    Perhaps the journal should be called Pre=peer review journal then.This is another example of you moving the goal posts.See,the peer reviewed data is usually the final process in the evidentiary process,regardless if the study is not part of a meta analysis.
    ===

  2. Nishant says:

    Hi Phoenix,
    “Your accusation that Dr.Von Lommel’s study is “extremely biased, highly opionated and poorly designed” seems without proper justification.Your example is…
    //For instance he assumes that all the neurological activity stops within few seconds of cardiac arrest and doesnot even attempt to record any brain activity which was so vital for his study(with an EEG, Functional MRI etc). Then he assumes the absence of ECG activity as a definition of clinical death! (His explanation to do so is presumptious)//
    But he did not state (implicitly or explicitly) that “neurological activity stops within few seconds of cardiac arrest”.This is an unwarranted extrapolation.”
    Well here is what he wrote in his study: “How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death?”
    “Regarding ECG’s – the doctor is well within his legal limits to conclude clinical death due to a flatline ECG/EKG.This is standard practice.” we donot declare a person dead just because of a flat ECG, otherwise whats the need of CPR?
    “Also,EEG’s and FMRI’s are not neccesary to conclude brain death. The Journal of American Medical Association lists a 3 step clinical criteria that can be used to diagnose brain death without the use of EEG’s.”
    For the JAMA link see my post with Steve below.”
    Well, Certainly they are not required for brain death, but as I have shown earlier in pim von lommels research paper, he wrote: “How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death?”. His entire research depends upon assumption that NDE’s occur when brain is not functioning and yet he doesn’t do a single study to ascertain that in his study subjects!!! Again you seem to be confused about cardiac arrest and brain death and medicolegal criterias for declaring a person dead. Cardiac arrest doesn’t mean brain death! And hence he should have done some investigation to ascertain the functioning of brain . I am a urologist, and I know how vital it is to ascertain brain death before you remove the kidneys for cadaveric transplant, because we cannot remove organs from a person who has even a slightest of possibility of regaining consciousness. Let me elaborate further ,Indeed best organs come from patients whose hearts are working fine, infact for several hours after brain death the intensivists and nephrologists try to bring all other physiological parameters(like heart rate, BP, Urine out put etc) and biochemical parameters(Serum Urea, Creatinine, LFT’s Electrolytes etc)as close to normal physiology as possible before removal of organs. Brain death is irreversible and nobody comes back to consciousness after brain death. However in cardiac arrest the patient is not brain dead, that means his brain is alive and that’s why he should have looked at whats happening in the brain during the study with the most advanced investigation available in his hospital to ascertain brain function in detail and not leave us with so much doubt in his study.
    ====
    “In the middle of the study he writes a lengthy anecdotal story reported by a cardiac nurse which she had heard from a patient, Here it is debunked://” I read that, but already its been said enough by me and steve that I don’t wish to write a lengthy rebuttal. However when I said “In the middle of the study…..” I was being sarcastic and I am sorry you couldn’t appreciate it(I should have elaborated) for who writes an anecdotal story in the middle of a research paper that too of an event that was not measured by the parmeters and was not part of the main study?. I think this only represents extreme bias on the part of Pim Von Lommel favouring NDE’s.===

    “Your issue of sample size and time of data collected seems to place an unfair restriction on the study.Por example,sample sizes for online surveys involves volunteers.However,the patients involved in NDE studies cannot volunteer prior to the study.What would they say? “OK,if a bus ever hits me and I ever survive it,I will participate as a subject”.That’s irrational,such cases are forced to deal with whatever sample size is available to them at any given time.And the time to collect the data has to consider the time it takes for the patients to recover.”
    No, not at all, sample size is not just how many volunteers participated in study but on how many participants are required to achieve a statistically significance for a given parameter. I only asked how he arrived at it ? for his study is not a Survey and he uses null hypothesis and validates or invalidates it with statistical methods like-pearson’s test, t test etc.I did not understand your bus analogy. You see I can write a finding in 10,50,100… etc number of patints in controls and subject groups and conclude them conforming or antagonizing the current knowledge on the subject. Sample size and how I arrived at it will tell my peers the power of my study, where an underpowered study means that they can be reasonably skeptical about the values arrived at after statistical analysis in the study. It will also help in comparing similar studies in past and will help in arriving at the minimal sample size for future studies. A well designed study will always mention it.
    ===
    “Thank god for there is so much criticism of this study from experts that it saved me a lot of time. Here is a link to one such//
    You are mistaking “criticism” with rational and factual refutations.The 2 are mutually exclusive.” In the next sentence you contradict yourself:
    ===
    The rest of your post merely repeats a lot of criticisms” with the assumption the NDE researchers cannot counter” You are presumptious; I have read the NDE researchers counters

    “They all elaborate their frustration to objectively study NDE’s with respect to Neurobiological parameters and end with suggesting that further studies are required to study NDE’s. They all allude to suggest that the current neurobiological investigations are inadequate to confirm or study NDE’s//
    That’s how all science and medical papers present their findings.”The data suggests such and such,but furhter studies is needed” Very few science and medical papers will conclude absolute proof.This is a clear double standard.”… How is it a double standard? Many of the medical studies are done to improve ones CV’s and hence are Not well designed from the beginning, some studies may not achieve the minimal criteria they aimed for or they may find an unexpected finding and hence they say further studies are required. However there are plenty of studies which achieve what they aimed for and are well designed from the beginning and on those guidelines are based. How can you say all papers…….?
    //( It is as if talking to a believer in ufo’s who ends the debate by saying you have no means to refute my claims because the aliens are from other dimensions and I don’t have the faculty to investigate them)//
    False analogy and straw man.None of these things you’ve mentioned has any connection with NDEs.”
    I had read the abduction/ufo reports and the studies and I find considerable analogy in subjective interpretation of ‘paranormal’ phenomenon in them and those who report NDE’s. Do you know they have studies and organizations too, like NDE’s people have, they too are not accepted widely in mainstream scientific literaturetc. You will find considerable anology also in skeptics and the debates also are so peculiarly similar (Please read them to understand what I mean)
    ===
    “Why would one expect to find guidelines for NDEs in neurological and psychiatric journals? Neurolgy deals with disorders of the nervous system and psychiatry deals with mental disorders.” Incorrect, its not just the disorders but the anatomy , physiology, biochemistry etc is also studied and not just disorders.
    “You also admit there exists studies favoring NDEs in peer reviewed journals but you claim the data was not thoroughly peer reviewed.Despite the obvious contradiction,your assumption is that the experts who published the data did not review it.Well,that’s for you to prove or else it’s just speculation that can be easily dismissed.”……. Please read my comment in context. Well , we all publish articles in journals, If you are qualified enough then only the technicalities of presentation and of the study is reviewed and the article gets published. The contents are never reviewed thoroughly and is done by 1 or 2 editors as a part time of their clinical practice. If you or your PG guide is well established your article gets published immediately. It is after publication that your study is debated and thoroughly peer reviewed. If indeed many such researches bring about a positive finding then a metanalysis is done and in annual meetings of associations or such occasions expert committee members write the guideline, its level of evidence and grade of recommendations.
    ===
    “Lets look at the issue of brain death, Now that we do so many cadaveric transplants we already have well defined criterias for brain death and should not be a matter of debate.This link should suffice//
    I already gave the criteria for brain death from JAMA.What is there to debate? My link is fraudulent?” Sorry, but I had written my previous post prior to your post, its just that my post was ‘pending moderation’ for 2 days. However the link I presented you is from American association of neurology and it is more comprehensive.

    “Most of the “skeptics” are highly prejudiced Materialists with deeply negative biases against any phenomena that might contradict his or her views.” I am a skeptic with respect to NDE’s but I believe(rather I Know but cant describe) in soul and god and am not materialistic in the sense you mean it. Bias or no bias, evidence speaks for itself. The burden of proof certainly lies with the believers in NDE’s and as all NDE studies allude to(as u admitted) ‘molre research needs to be done on NDE’s; atleast accepts that none of them achieved to prove what they aimed for with full satisfaction.

    “In my opinion we do have a soul and free will and this universe is alive, and want to realize it fully.
    Its just that ; even if you meet an enlightened person, it means nothing if we are ourselves not transformed and attain enlightenment. And in my opinion NDE’s even if they are true are not (contrary to existing evidence) going to be helpful in this endeavour (I think it’s the most important aim in human existence)” You haven’t commented on this?
    It seems we will never agree with each other with the current evidence on NDE’s and wish you all the best.

  3. steve says:

    Phoenix
    “Regarding ECG’s – the doctor is well within his legal limits to conclude clinical death due to a flatline ECG/EKG.This is standard practice” Clinical death is not brain death.

    “Also,EEG’s and FMRI’s are not neccesary to conclude brain death.The Journal of American Medical Association lists a 3 step clinical criteria that can be used to diagnose brain death without the use of EEG’s.This method is used on a daily basis throughout the U.S.” Van Lommel’s studies concern people in cardiac arrest not people who are brain dead. As has been explained to you many times brain death is not reversible.

    “See these 2 links on the Corroboration of the Denture Anecdote.Notice how these Skeptics distorts facts to appease their audience.” Okay let’s examine the medical facts 1) The doctor who reported this case claims because their was no circulation their can be no brain activity. This is false “Absence and presence of brain activity during cardiac arrest depends on the efficiency of resuscitation as well as the duration of no heart activity. Some people do awaken during cardiac resuscitation (see this http://neardth.com/near-death-experiences-in-survivors-of-cardiac-arrest.php )

    2) Brain activity was not measured at the time, which is why its absence was inferred.

    3) “Paragraphs 182-183. TG could not imagine there was enough oxygen in Mr. B’s brain to enable hearing, seeing or interpretation. Again an opinion with an inference, but not a measurement. After all, even TG stated clearly in this transcript that cardiac massage with the Thumper was so efficient, that people sometimes regained conciousness during cardiac massage with this machine despite having no heartbeat (p19 in Autumn “Terugkeer” / paragraphs 189-190).”

    4)”The delay between falling, his discovery in the field, and the arrival of the ambulance has far-reaching implications. We know from extensive medical experience, that for people with a normal body temperature, brain damage occurs after 4 minutes of cardiac arrest, and death after 12 minutes”

    5)”This man would have been walking on this field appropriately clothed for the weather, and with a normal body temperature. So when he collapsed, his body temperature would have been normal. Clothing slows body cooling, which is why people wear warm clothing when the weather is cold. So if this man had no heart rhythm pumping blood around his body when he collapsed, he would have developed extensive brain damage and died before his body had a chance to cool. In other words, this man most likely collapsed due to a period of abnormal heart rhythm, but still a heart rhythm that pumped blood around his body. And his clothed body slowly cooled down as he lay there for an undetermined time before discovery.”

    6) “Unfortunately, TG gives two stories regarding the timing of removal of this man’s dentures. In the first report, TG states that the dentures were removed after starting the Thumper (p14-15 in Autumn “Terugkeer” 2008 / paragraphs 58, 93). In a second statement TG states that the dentures were removed after positioning the man under the Thumper, and only after the mask for artificial respiration was positioned on the man’s face was the Thumper started.

    7)”TG reported that Beekhuizen described actually seeing and feeling TG removing his dentures, saying that TG placed them in a drawer of a cart on which were many small bottles or ampoules (p16 in Autumn “Terugkeer” / paragraph 94). NOTEThis is a difference between what Beekhuizen saw, and what TG actually did. TG described placing the dentures on a shelf (p16 in Autumn “Terugkeer” / paragraphs 93-95″

    8) “The only gap remaining in the medical explanation of this OBE/NDE is the question of the timing of the removal of the denture. The transcript reveals some reason to question whether the denture was removed before the Thumper was turned on, or after the Thumper was turned on. However, regardless of this question, one thing is certain, the moment Mr. B arrived at the resuscitation room, adequate resuscitative measures were applied. On arrival of a person in cardiac arrest, people do not stand back, scratch their heads, and start thinking about what they are going to do. Instead they leap upon the person like a pack of wolves and continue resuscitation. If this resuscitation was efficient enough, this would also have resulted in the return of sufficient consciousness so Mr. B would have been able to perceive his dentures being removed. After all, even efficient cardiac resuscitation by hand is sometimes efficient enough to restore consciousness ”

    “Your claim of misdiagnosis is wishful thinking” No it’s not here a quote on this “Can people recover from brain death? There are stories that claim such reverses.
    “There is no possibility of recovering from brain death,” says Stevens. “Brain death recovery suggests a misdiagnosis. If you recovered, it was something else”-possibly a coma or vegetative state. Too often, people confuse those situations with brain death, says Sharp.

    How do they differ?

    “Coma is distinguished from brain death by the fact that you can elicit responses from the brain, detect movements in response to pain, and it is not irreversible,” says Stevens. “You can wake up from a coma.” The term vegetative state refers to patients “who have a severe impairment of consciousness but have progressed to a state where they begin to open their eyes. In medical speech we say that they have elements of arousal but there is no awareness.” This condition also has the potential for reversal.”

    So their two possibilities 1)Alexander was misdiagnosed as been brain dead (Which must have been the case otherwise he would be dead now) or 2) None of the doctors ever declared him brain dead and he made it up.

  4. Phoenix says:

    Steve

    Your claim of misdiagnosis is wishful thinking.With so many misdiagnosis,those doctors should have been sued and fired for malpractice.Why is that the armchair critic has the information of fraudulent practices but the medical staff at the hosptials where the studies were done cannot present such data?

  5. Phoenix says:

    Hi Nishant and thanks for the response

    You said:by Pim Von Lommel, a cursory look at the study seems authentic but if you actually read it thoroughly you come to know that its extremely biased, highly opionated and poorly designed..//

    Your accusation that Dr.Von Lommel’s study is “extremely biased, highly opionated and poorly designed” seems without proper justification.Your example is…

    //For instance he assumes that all the neurological activity stops within few seconds of cardiac arrest and doesnot even attempt to record any brain activity which was so vital for his study(with an EEG, Functional MRI etc). Then he assumes the absence of ECG activity as a definition of clinical death! (His explanation to do so is presumptious)//

    But he did not state (implicitly or explicitly) that “neurological activity stops within few seconds of cardiac arrest”.This is an unwarranted extrapolation.
    Regarding ECG’s – the doctor is well within his legal limits to conclude clinical death due to a flatline ECG/EKG.This is standard practice.Also,EEG’s and FMRI’s are not neccesary to conclude brain death.The Journal of American Medical Association lists a 3 step clinical criteria that can be used to diagnose brain death without the use of EEG’s.This method is used on a daily basis throughout the U.S.
    For the JAMA link see my post with Steve below.
    ====
    In the middle of the study he writes a lengthy anecdotal story reported by a cardiac nurse which she had heard from a patient, Here it is debunked://

    I have been through skeptic links ad nauseam before.Materialists assume that because someone has written a rebuttal in the form of a complaint therefore the matter is refuted.But they never count on the the fact that we might have counter rebuttals.See these 2 links on the Corroboration of the Denture Anecdote.Notice how these Skeptics distorts facts to appease their audience.

    netwerknde.nl/wp-content/uploads/jndsdentureman.pdf

    academia.edu/768638/Interview_with_TG_about_the_Man_with_the_Dentures_translation_by_Gerald_Woerlee_
    ===
    The study parameters are ill defined and the collection of data is done few days later and then few years after( He doesn’t mention how he arrived at the appropriate sample size or how he arrived at the timing of interviewing the patient). Indeed a well designed study defines every terminology, conflicts of interest, shortcomings of study etc in detail//

    Your issue of sample size and time of data collected seems to place an unfair restriction on the study.Por example,sample sizes for online surveys involves volunteers.However,the patients involved in NDE studies cannot volunteer prior to the study.What would they say? “OK,if a bus ever hits me and I ever survive it,I will participate as a subject”.That’s irrational,such cases are forced to deal with whatever sample size is available to them at any given time.And the time to collect the data has to consider the time it takes for the patients to recover.
    ===
    Thank god for there is so much criticism of this study from experts that it saved me a lot of time. Here is a link to one such//

    You are mistaking “criticism” with rational and factual refutations.The 2 are mutually exclusive.
    ===
    The rest of your post merely repeats a lot of criticisms with the assumption the NDE researchers cannot counter.Like this one:

    //…Among these errors are Lommel’s misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the dying-brain hypothesis, misunderstandings over the role of anoxia, misplaced confidence in EEG measurements//

    The dying-brain and anoxia/hypoxia hypotheses have ben adequately refuted many times.They do not and cannot consistently and accurately account for all the data.Susan Blackmore cannot be taken seriously by her own admission yet skeptics still quote her as if she’s the ultimate authority on NDEs.
    ===
    They all elaborate their frustration to objectively study NDE’s with respect to Neurobiological parameters and end with suggesting that further studies are required to study NDE’s. They all allude to suggest that the current neurobiological investigations are inadequate to confirm or study NDE’s//

    That’s how all science and medical papers present their findings.”The data suggests such and such,but furhter studies is needed” Very few science and medical papers will conclude absolute proof.This is a clear double standard.

    //( It is as if talking to a believer in ufo’s who ends the debate by saying you have no means to refute my claims because the aliens are from other dimensions and I don’t have the faculty to investigate them)//

    False analogy and straw man.None of these things you’ve mentioned has any connection with NDEs.
    ===
    No neurology or Psychiatric association has included NDE’s in its guidelines. Psychiatric and some journals do have studies for and against NDE’s but no such data is thoroughly peer reviewed or any metanalysis done (Prospective Randomised control trials are conspicuous by their absence concerning NDE’s). Thus the level of evidence is poor and are not included in guidelines.(The large number of studies alone doesn’t have any impact on levels of evidence) The only psychiatric guideline I found was on how to interview and manage patients who report NDE’s. If you have some recent knowledge contrary to what I said in this paragraph, Kindly send me the link of the guidelines of the concerned neurological/Psychiatric association//

    Why would one expect to find guidelines for NDEs in neurological and psychiatric journals? Neurolgy deals with disorders of the nervous system and psychiatry deals with mental disorders.
    You also admit there exists studies favoring NDEs in peer reviewed journals but you claim the data was not thoroughly peer reviewed.Despite the obvious contradiction,your assumption is that the experts who published the data did not review it.Well,that’s for you to prove or else it’s just speculation that can be easily dismissed.
    ===
    Lets look at the issue of brain death, Now that we do so many cadaveric transplants we already have well defined criterias for brain death and should not be a matter of debate.This link should suffice//

    I already gave the criteria for brain death from JAMA.What is there to debate? My link is fraudulent?
    ===
    I think you misunderstood me, I never said that deterministic laws of physics determine free will. I only wanted to say that most probably NDE’s are nothing but a psychological phenomenon with no supernatural links. And that I only wanted to prove that all these anecdotal reports and studies don’t mean that NDE’s are supernatural or extraphysiological phenomenon. NDE reports appear to be as true as that of the UFO’s (Please Read UFO stories, u will find a similarity and a pattern like u Find in NDE’s//

    Like I said before,you assume NDEs are debunked because some skeptic has complained about it without even considering that we may have counter links.
    Most of the “skeptics” are highly prejudiced Materialists with deeply negative biases against any phenomena that might contradict his or her views.Also,your example of UFOs remain fallacious.

  6. A.H. says:

    From the catechism of the Catholic Church, the Church Jesus founded:

    IV. Hell

    1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”

    1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.612 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he “will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,”613 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”614

    1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

    1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”616

    Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where “men will weep and gnash their teeth.”617

    1037 God predestines no one to go to hell;618 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”:619

  7. steve says:

    “I said brain death does not always require a completely destroyed brain.Look at the clinical criteria again.” Brain death is not reversible get it?

    “who was declared brain death due to a severe case of bacterial meningitis.His doctors reported he had suffered some brain stem damage,no motor response and fixed pupils.This diagnosis is consistent with the criteria for brain death even though his brain and brain stem was not completely destroyed” If this actually happened then obviously they misdiagnosed him – since obviously he is alive now and his brain is functioning perfectly.

  8. steve says:

    “False,the larger the object the more it obeys the laws of classical physics.Newtonian mechanics can make many accurate predictions on motion and position of large objects” And since they are predictions they can be absolutely 100% wrong. I will explain why you can’t predict with certainty, first you would have to know the starting of any object EXACTLY. This would mean that you would need to measure the starting position to an accuracy of infinite decimal places, which means that you would need an infinite amount of memory, or infinite computers, just to store the starting position of the object. In other words you can’t even start to predict, with certainty, the behaviour of a object. On top of that, you would need to know every possible factor in the Universe which could have a bearing on the object and there’s no possible way we can even know what those factors are, let alone measure them. Once again, we can’t even make a start.

    “If I am caused by the laws of nature to do something then it is not a choice.” That’s not included in the definition of choice.

    “So your claim that “choice is the result of chance” is a contradiction.” Indeterminism clearly is why we have the illusion of free will.

    “This is pure science fiction.Time has a beginning.Hawking/Penrose posits time began to exist at the big bang.Prior to the singularity there was no time.What sort of evidence can you produce” Firstly we don’t know if their ever was a singularity, secondly even if their was a singularity it would need a cause, and since it would need a cause their would be time before the Big Bang.

    “And give me an example of an infinite past within the known universe? What are you talking about? The infinite past is not a particular thing you can grasp hold of.

    “It seems the All contradicts himself by not adhering to his own principle.If the all was outside of space-time then perhaps I could grant you your position but unfortunately that’s not what’s being posited here.You have restricted your “All” within the definition of cause/effect” It’s not “within” cause and effect it IS cause and effect. The All is also timeless and space less – since it’s not a particular thing with boundaries.

    “Yes,God and the bus is real” The physical world is absolutely real – it’s just not real in the way that deluded people think that it is.

    “Out of curioisity,Is this God physical or non-physical?” It’s unbounded so it’s not physical.

    “But how can something exist physically (such as thoughts reducible to chemicals) and yet also be imaginary (non-existent)?” Imaginary things are not existent? They exist in your mind and the thoughts also exist in the physical world as chemicals in your brain, so I don’t know why you say imaginary things don’t exist.

  9. Phoenix says:

    i did not say brain death is NOT real death.I said brain death does not always require a completely destroyed brain.Look at the clinical criteria again.

    For example: In the case of Eben Alexander who was declared brain death due to a severe case of bacterial meningitis.His doctors reported he had suffered some brain stem damage,no motor response and fixed pupils.This diagnosis is consistent with the criteria for brain death even though his brain and brain stem was not completely destroyed

  10. steve says:

    Your link confirms what I said quote from their “Because life-support techniques have become so advanced, it is possible that even in the face of fatal injury or unrecoverable illness, the heart can be kept beating with medication and respiration(breathing) can be artificially performed with a ventilator. The concept of brain death developed in response to these advanced medical techniques that can maintain some bodily functions. Brain death, as understood in US law and medical practice, occurs when there is no function of the entire brain. The brainstem is the area of the brain that controls breathing and circulation and therefore controls essential life functions. When the brain, including the brainstem, has ceased to function, the individual is truly dead by medical and legal standards. Thus, brain death is real death.”

    *Notice that the destruction of the brain and brain stem is not neccessary for determining brain death” Do you read your own links quote “When the brain, including the brainstem, has ceased to function, the individual is truly dead by medical and legal standards. Thus, brain death is real death.”

    .”Or else you are just speculating” Here is a detailed explanation of the “dentures case” which includes the information that Van Lommel conveniently forgets to tell us. http://neardth.com/denture-man.php

    “Claiming not being able to know the future has no explanatory power,it is an argument from ignorance.” It’s not an argument from ignorance it’s an explanation of why we have the illusion of free. Before a decision is made we feel options are open to us – because we don’t know what’s been determined to happen.

    “Thoughts are deliberated by the mind” And where does mind and all its thoughts come from?

    “The mind is non-physical and therefore not part of the causal chain” It’s aware of the physical and is effected by so it clearly is physical and part of causality.

    “Since the mind is not part of the causal chain it is therefore an uncaused entity that can effect without being coreced by external factors” Where do thoughts – which are the content of the mind – come from? All your mind does is observe the thoughts, so where those thoughts come from? Thoughts are either uncaused – which we can rule out since its logically impossible and it would make mentally functioning impossible – or the thoughts are caused.

  11. nishant says:

    Indeed brain death by definition is irreversible damage to brain and there is no scope of recovery of consciousness. Thats why before cadaveric removal of organs it is essential to determine brain death and not just journal articles but also guidelines by various mediacl associations are well established for the same. I would have liked to elaborate on my opinions buy i dont know Why is my comment pending moderation since yesterday?

  12. Phoenix says:

    Indeterminism operates at all levels, you cannot predict any future event with certainty//

    False,the larger the object the more it obeys the laws of classical physics.Newtonian mechanics can make many accurate predictions on motion and position of large objects.
    ===
    All those choices are the result of causes and not chance//

    If I am caused by the laws of nature to do something then it is not a choice.So your claim that “choice is the result of chance” is a contradiction.
    ===
    he All itself is infinite, their is nothing other than itself. It has no boundary and that makes it infinite (by definition). Yes it’s possible for a infinite past series of events, remember the “infinite past” is not some particular point In time//

    This is pure science fiction.Time has a beginning.Hawking/Penrose posits time began to exist at the big bang.Prior to the singularity there was no time.What sort of evidence can you produce?And give me an example of an infinite past within the known universe?
    ===
    The All IS causality//

    It seems the All contradicts himself by not adhering to his own principle.If the all was outside of space-time then perhaps I could grant you your position but unfortunately that’s not what’s being posited here.You have restricted your “All” within the definition of cause/effect.
    ===
    No the all is not material, remember what I said God alone is real all else is illusion//

    Oh yes,I nearly forgot.God is the only reality,everything else is illusory…and of course the bus is also real.Yes,God and the bus is real.
    Out of curioisity,Is this God physical or non-physical?
    ===
    If you are experiencing something then you are experiencing it. Experience = Experience. In addition all thoughts have a physical existence (eg chemicals) and so from that perspective they also exist as physical things//

    But how can something exist physically (such as thoughts reducible to chemicals) and yet also be imaginary (non-existent)?
    You are clearly still a Materialist.You use their same tired excuses and constantly contradict yourself like all other Materialists/Physicalists.Face it,there is no coherent physicalist thesis.

  13. Phoenix says:

    This is nonsense it’s clear you don’t even know the definition of brain death//

    Newsflash! When doctors and surgeons treat and operate on patients they do not consult websters dictionary.They consult medical journals.
    ===
    Here is the definition of brain death “Brain stem death is where a person no longer has any activity in their brain stem, and has permanently lost the potential for consciousness and the capacity to breathe.”//

    False! Here is the actual criteria for determining brain death from the Journal of American Medical Association.They are used in hospitals all over the US and around the globe.
    http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=181900#CLINICALCRITERIAFORBRAINDEATH

    Clinical Criteria for Determining Brain Death
    ——————————————————–
    -No response to any stimulus—no movement, withdrawal, grimace, or blinking
    -No breathing efforts when taken off the ventilator (the apnea test)
    -Pupils dilated and not responsive to light
    -No gag reflex, no corneal reflex (blinking when the surface of the eye is touched), and absence of other specific reflexes

    *In other words,the 3 essential criteria are a) coma b) absent brain stem reflexes c) apnea (lack of spontaneous breathing)
    *Notice that the destruction of the brain and brain stem is not neccessary for determining brain death
    ===
    First you can’t confirm that it happened in deep coma and CPR ( since this is from her memory and memories can be unreliable). Second this man reported what was happening to him and the room he was in, this doesn’t need any paranormal ability to explain it, since brain activity doesn’t stop just because the heart stops beating their is no reason why he couldn’t have sufficient brain activity to be conscious.//

    I gave you a link from a prospective study.Your response is that I can’t prove deep coma and unreliable memories – despite the doctors having already declared them clinically dead,using accepted medical guidelines.You are the one who must prove conclusively whatever assertion you wish to put forward.Or else you are just speculating.
    ===
    See this study done on rats//

    See this rebuttal to your link

    iands.org/news/news/front-page-news/981-study-on-rats-proposes-a-mechanism-for-ndes.html
    ===
    Yes but we can never know the state of the universe. Free will is an illusion based on our inability to know the future, because of that we able to talk about making choices//

    This could only be true if human behavior was algorithmic.The burden of proof is on you to demostrate such a possibility.Claiming not being able to know the future has no explanatory power,it is an argument from ignorance.
    ===
    Their is no such thing as uncaused, uncaused means popping into being out of nothing. Before you said we are able to make deliberate choices based on goals. No how on earth would that be possible if all our thoughts just appear uncaused out of nothing?//

    Uncaused does not mean our thoughts appear from nothing.Thoughts are deliberated by the mind.The mind is non-physical and therefore not part of the causal chain.Only mass/energy is restricted to cause and effect.Since the mind is not part of the causal chain it is therefore an uncaused entity that can effect without being coreced by external factors.Your characterization of the an acausal mind is a caricature.
    ===

  14. Nishant says:

    Hello, Phoenix, Ali, Steve:
    Phoenix I read your response to me and I would start with the study you quoted:” Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands” by Pim Von Lommel, a cursory look at the study seems authentic but if you actually read it thoroughly you come to know that its extremely biased, highly opionated and poorly designed.. For instance he assumes that all the neurological activity stops within few seconds of cardiac arrest and doesnot even attempt to record any brain activity which was so vital for his study(with an EEG, Functional MRI etc). Then he assumes the absence of ECG activity as a definition of clinical death! (His explanation to do so is presumptious). In the middle of the study he writes a lengthy anecdotal story reported by a cardiac nurse which she had heard from a patient, Here it is debunked: http://neardth.com/denture-man.php. The study parameters are ill defined and the collection of data is done few days later and then few years after( He doesn’t mention how he arrived at the appropriate sample size or how he arrived at the timing of interviewing the patient). Indeed a well designed study defines every terminology, conflicts of interest, shortcomings of study etc in detail. Even if we ignore the technicalities lets see what he concludes: “Interpretation We do not know why so few cardiac patients report NDE after CPR, although age plays a part. With a purely physiological explanation such as cerebral anoxia for the experience, most patients who have been clinically dead should report one. “ That is all??? In discussion part he only attempts to suggest that NDE’s must be extra physiological experiences which need to be investigated. “With lack of evidence for any other theories for NDE, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that consciousness and memories are localised in the brain should be discussed. How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG? “(He never used EEG in his study and probably is covering up for the same) So the bottom line is : I don’t know how or what NDE’s are but probablye they are from the extraphysiological consciousness and need to be investigated! A remarkable omission is that of ‘Aims and objectives’ which are written at the outset before beginning a study.
    Thank god for there is so much criticism of this study from experts that it saved me a lot of time. Here is a link to one such: http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=23455
    And here are some more:
    “Neurobiologist Dick Swaab praised Lommel’s research for mapping patients experiences and opening up the subject of near-death experiences (NDE’s) to the medical world. But he also noted that Lommel’s book ignores (Nobel Prize–winning) scientific knowledge including some conclusions from his own research. Lommel does not refute neurobiological explanations, gives no scientific basis for his statements and borrows concepts from quantum physics without ground (Quantum mysticism). According to Swaab Van Lommel deviates from the scientific approach and his book can only be categorized as pseudoscientific.[5]
    Dutch physician and anesthesiologist G. M. Woerlee wrote a chapter by chapter examination of Lommel’s Consciousness Beyond Life. According to Woerlee the book is full of “tendentious and suggestive pseudoscientific nonsense”, and the picture of the functioning of the body as proposed by Lommel is not consistent with medical knowledge. Woerlee concluded that the book is a “masterly example of how tendentious and suggestive interpretation of international scientific literature, vague presentation of basic medical facts, together with ignorance of some basic statistical principles leads to incorrect conclusions.”[6]
    Jason Braithwaite, a Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, University of Birmingham, issued an in-depth analysis and critique of Lommel’s prospective study published in the medical journal The Lancet, concluding that while Lommel’s et al. study makes a useful contribution, it contains several factual and logical errors. Among these errors are Lommel’s misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the dying-brain hypothesis, misunderstandings over the role of anoxia, misplaced confidence in EEG measurements (a flat electroencephalogram (EEG) reading is not evidence of total brain inactivity), etc. Jason concluded with, “it is difficult to see what one could learn from the paranormal survivalist position which sets out assuming the truth of that which it seeks to establish, makes additional and unnecessary assumptions, misrepresents the current state of knowledge from mainstream science, and appears less than comprehensive in its analysis of the available facts.”[7]
    In his book Lommel also supported alleged psychic abilities of some NDErs. Skeptic Donna Harris in a review for the book wrote the research was unreliable as it was taken from self-reported surveys and interviews and “since any type of paranormal or intuitive power remains unproven, it is troubling that the author doesn’t question these abilities, and just includes them as accepted facts.”
    To add to this, Indeed almost all of the studies I read only raise questions (the aim of a study should be to answer questions isn’t it). They all elaborate their frustration to objectively study NDE’s with respect to Neurobiological parameters and end with suggesting that further studies are required to study NDE’s. They all allude to suggest that the current neurobiological investigations are inadequate to confirm or study NDE’s ( It is as if talking to a believer in ufo’s who ends the debate by saying you have no means to refute my claims because the aliens are from other dimensions and I don’t have the faculty to investigate them).
    Besides, we know that a person in deep sleep/coma loses his sense of time/place/person(patient after a few weeks coma wakes up to be astonished that he has been in coma for weeks and that the incident occurred a few hours earlier; and vice versa), so even if we assume that there was no brain activity whatsoever(its impossible as this would mean brain death, but lets assume) when the NDE occurred how can 1 say with certainty that the person didn’t experience it at the time of loss of brain activity or at the beginning of it?
    No neurology or Psychiatric association has included NDE’s in its guidelines. Psychiatric and some journals do have studies for and against NDE’s but no such data is thoroughly peer reviewed or any metanalysis done (Prospective Randomised control trials are conspicuous by their absence concerning NDE’s). Thus the level of evidence is poor and are not included in guidelines.(The large number of studies alone doesn’t have any impact on levels of evidence) The only psychiatric guideline I found was on how to interview and manage patients who report NDE’s. If you have some recent knowledge contrary to what I said in this paragraph, Kindly send me the link of the guidelines of the concerned neurological/Psychiatric association.
    Lets look at the issue of brain death, Now that we do so many cadaveric transplants we already have well defined criterias for brain death and should not be a matter of debate.This link should suffice: https://www.aan.com/PressRoom/Home/GetDigitalAsset/8470
    Phoenix: “According to Materialism all systems and entities are subject to the deterministic laws of cause and effect.Given the exact prior state,the results will never change.This is then extrapolated onto conscious beings too.However,the Materialist has failed to justify how humans are algorithmically controlled by the deterministic laws of physics,without serious contradictions.It seems the only rational choice is free will,ie. humans are free agents capable of selecting alternative courses without any external coercion.”
    I think you misunderstood me, I never said that deterministic laws of physics determine free will. I only wanted to say that most probably NDE’s are nothing but a psychological phenomenon with no supernatural links. And that I only wanted to prove that all these anecdotal reports and studies don’t mean that NDE’s are supernatural or extraphysiological phenomenon. NDE reports appear to be as true as that of the UFO’s (Please Read UFO stories, u will find a similarity and a pattern like u Find in NDE’s
    In my opinion we do have a soul and free will and this universe is alive, and want to realize it fully.
    Its just that ; even if you meet an enlightened person, it means nothing if we are ourselves not transformed and attain enlightenment. And in my opinion NDE’s even if they are true are not (contrary to existing evidence) going to be helpful in this endeavour (I think it’s the most important aim in human existence)
    Thank You.

  15. Indian says:

    The theme of the movie Star Wars was inspired from Hindu philosophy.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_and_religion_in_Star_Wars

  16. Indian says:

    Inception movie is explained by Alan Watts.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR9Fm9CBqWg

  17. Indian says:

    Interstellar movie is based on Vedanta philosophy.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftr11CQvqms

  18. Indian says:

    Hollywood movie The Matrix explains the true nature of the universe or God here
    http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/08/28/the-matrix-the-sanskrit-texts/

  19. steve says:

    “There are reports of patients who have experienced NDEs during the time period that brain death was declared” This is nonsense it’s clear you don’t even know the definition of brain death.

    “b) This is a fundamental error of the actual criteria of brain death,which does not strictly imply complete destruction of the brain or brain stem” Here is the definition of brain death “Brain stem death is where a person no longer has any activity in their brain stem, and has permanently lost the potential for consciousness and the capacity to breathe.”

    “c) there are case studies with positive results on NDEs” Only one example in here of out of body experience “Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: ‘Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are’. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: ‘Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.’ I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR.” First you can’t confirm that it happened in deep coma and CPR ( since this is from her memory and memories can be unreliable). Second this man reported what was happening to him and the room he was in, this doesn’t need any paranormal ability to explain it, since brain activity doesn’t stop just because the heart stops beating their is no reason why he couldn’t have sufficient brain activity to be conscious. See this study done on rats http://www.livescience.com/38817-electrical-activity-surges-in-dying-brain.html

    Quote from the article “To sort out the issue, Borjigin and her colleagues examined nine rats. They induced cardiac arrest while the animals were hooked up to EEG machines, and the team then measured the electrical activity in the animals’ brains.
    About 30 seconds after the brain had stopped, all the animals experienced waves of synchronized brain activity that were characteristic of the conscious brain. Rats that were asphyxiated with carbon monoxide showed a similar pattern of brain activity.”

    The rats’ visual cortex, which processes visual imagery, was also highly activated. This could shed light on why NDEs are so vivid, Borjigin said.

    “They all show the fingerprints of neural consciousness at near-death is at a much higher level compared to the waking state. That explains the realer-than-real human experience,” Borjigin told LiveScience”

    So their is no reason why a human could not have conscious experience during cardiac arrest.

    “According to Materialism all systems and entities are subject to the deterministic laws of cause and effect.Given the exact prior state,the results will never change.This is then extrapolated onto conscious beings too.However,the Materialist has failed to justify how humans are algorithmically controlled by the deterministic laws of physics,without serious contradictions.It seems the only rational choice is free will,ie. humans are free agents capable of selecting alternative courses without any external coercion.An uncaused agent implicates dualism,so the Materialist must deny that to keep his narrative and faith in Materialism” Yes but we can never know the state of the universe. Free will is an illusion based on our inability to know the future, because of that we able to talk about making choices. Their is no such thing as uncaused, uncaused means popping into being out of nothing. Before you said we are able to make deliberate choices based on goals. No how on earth would that be possible if all our thoughts just appear uncaused out of nothing?

  20. steve says:

    Phoenix
    “But this is merely asserted to be the case without justifying why indeterminism operates at the psychological level” Indeterminism operates at all levels, you cannot predict any future event with certainty.

    “Healthy lifestyles are the result of consistent and deliberate choices,not chance” All those choices are the result of causes and not chance.

    “Then give me your reasons why you believe infinities are real,and how it’s possible for an infinite series of past events?” The All itself is infinite, their is nothing other than itself. It has no boundary and that makes it infinite (by definition). Yes it’s possible for a infinite past series of events, remember the “infinite past” is not some particular point In time.

    “Regardless because Materialism rests on 2 main assumptions” I am not a scientific materialist.

    “If the “All” cannot logically have a cause then the “All” violates causality” The All IS causality.

    “But the all is material after all,is it not?” No the all is not material, remember what I said God alone is real all else is illusion.

    “Why is the “material all” exempt from the law of cause of effect?” Because the All is the law of cause and effect it’s not a part of it.

    “Yes,the bus exists but not at the subatomic level.” Yes that would be because the bus is a macroscopic object wouldn’t it?

    “Science must be wrong then.One cannot isolate any quantifiable entity for analysis,according to materialism at least.” What it means is you cannot know the absolute state of anything – because to do so you would have to know every piece of information in the universe – and that’s not possible.

    “They exist but they are imaginary.These are a clear contradiction in terms” If you are experiencing something then you are experiencing it. Experience = Experience. In addition all thoughts have a physical existence (eg chemicals) and so from that perspective they also exist as physical things.

  21. Phoenix says:

    @Nishant
    Their is no evidence that the information survives – intact – after the death of the brain their is no more evidence for that than the information stored on a CD continuing once the CD has been destroyed//

    There are reports of patients who have experienced NDEs during the time period that brain death was declared.This is usually when “skeptics” claim a) fraud b) no one can be revived after brain death c) no such data exists in peer reviewed journals

    a) Is mere speculation and the Atheist making the claim must prove fraudulent practices by the doctors
    b) This is a fundamental error of the actual criteria of brain death,which does not strictly imply complete destruction of the brain or brain stem
    c) there are case studies with positive results on NDEs
    http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

    //What this physicist was saying in the video is that you can reconstruct the past by knowing the state of the system. So for example if you could somehow store all the data in the universe, (the position and momentum of every particle and energy beam in the universe) at any moment in time you could know the past state of the universe. This means that you could recover a persons consciousness and re create their living brain. Obviously though that is just science fiction.”. I donot think that this universe is a giant computer and I think the conservation of information is a theory put about information in computers and there is a theory of conservation of quantum information. But its applicability in conscious living beings is an over stretched assumption//

    According to Materialism all systems and entities are subject to the deterministic laws of cause and effect.Given the exact prior state,the results will never change.This is then extrapolated onto conscious beings too.However,the Materialist has failed to justify how humans are algorithmically controlled by the deterministic laws of physics,without serious contradictions.It seems the only rational choice is free will,ie. humans are free agents capable of selecting alternative courses without any external coercion.An uncaused agent implicates dualism,so the Materialist must deny that to keep his narrative and faith in Materialism.

  22. Phoenix says:

    No it doesn’t, the past results of coin flips tell you nothing about the result of future flips. The same thing is true with human behaviour//

    Let’s step back a bit.I said randomness is unpredictable due to lack of order or structure.You then gave me an analogy of coin toss and said human behaviors are the same.But this is merely asserted to be the case without justifying why indeterminism operates at the psychological level.
    In fact,I could easily falsify your assertion by pointing out that humans tend to have fixed habits,sometimes bad or good.Such behaviors are usually solidified through repetitive thoughts,emotions and behaviors.For example,a healthy and fit person will not resolve his lifestyle through random outcomes.Healthy lifestyles are the result of consistent and deliberate choices,not mere chance.
    ===
    their is no reason why the universe cannot be eternal//

    Then give me your reasons why you believe infinities are real,and how it’s possible for an infinite series of past events?

    //Yes and as I explained before when scientists speak of universe they mean the observable universe they do not mean all that exists//

    Regardless because Materialism rests on 2 main assumptions:
    1.That the material is all that exists and 2.We cannot extrapolate beyond what can be observed.
    Thus appealing to possible additional existentials does not relieve you from your burden of material proof.Even with such a possibility,given Philosophical Materialism,your belief system demands only the acceptance of material existence and the rejection of any non-material entities.
    ===
    When I say universe I mean everything that exists – the all. The All cannot logically have a cause – since it contains literally everything so their is nothing which can have possible caused it//

    If the “All” cannot logically have a cause then the “All” violates causality.
    ===
    The All doesn’t have an origin so this statement is meaningless//

    But the all is material after all,is it not? Why is the “material all” exempt from the law of cause of effect?
    ===
    No theory says an actual bus is not real, so stop speaking nonsense//

    Yes,the bus exists but not at the subatomic level.
    ===
    No I am saying you can’t isolate the brain from the rest of the universe//

    Science must be wrong then.One cannot isolate any quantifiable entity for analysis,according to materialism at least.
    ===
    Certainly they exist – as imaginary things.//

    They exist but they are imaginary.These are a clear contradiction in terms

  23. Ali Sina says:

    @Kamose5
    Maybe there is not enough evidence to prove God directly. But there is enough evidence to prove NDE is a real phenomenon and not hallucination. With all the evidence we have it is really not possible to deny that and remain honest.

    Once the objectivity of NDE is proven, then we should also listen to their claims. Here is where things get murky. Although the stories fall into the same pattern they are too varied for my comfort.

    We all have dreams. They seem real when we have them but when we wake up it becomes clear they were not and they are often silly in content. NDE stories may be strange but they fall into the same pattern. People realize sooner or later that they are dead that they are leaving their body and moving away from it. They often fly or hover over their bodies, observing the scene of accident or the operation room from above. They see the people surrounding them and then they make a transition to another plane where they see other beings who have died before.

    There is enough coherence to recognize they are objective but also enough incoherence to confuse you, or at least me. One atheist was told that he will find the truth in the Bible. I do find a lot of truth in the Bible but I also find a lot of errors in it. So why he was told to read this book and why he was not warned that this book also contains absurdities? Does really God wants us to believe in the story of Adam and Eve literally? In that case why he did not created us stupid?

    I am bothered by these and many questions like these. Sometimes I think I have found an answer, but then again I feel I have not. I read hundreds of NDE stories in the hope that I will eventually find the answer to my questions. These stories reveal a lot while at the same time they cause more questions. The more I learn the more I realize how much I don’t know.

    As for people like Richard Dawkins I say there is nothing wrong with their intelligence or even chakras. Their problem is focus. I am sure you are familiar with that famous picture of that looks like an old ugly witch and if you change your focus you can suddenly see it is a beautiful young woman. You can find many examples of optical illusions like that if you search. The picture is the same. But we often see what we want to see and can’t see what we don’t.

    There are people who think Muslims had nothing to do with 9/11 and it was all an inside job orchestrated by CIA and Mossad. These people are so convinced that is you try to explain their confusion they call you stupid. I wrote an article refuting their silly claims but they attack me before reading it. They are so cocksure that they even laugh at the idea that someone would refute something so “obvious” as what they believe to be a fact.

    Unfortunately the majority of people are like that – more than 50% more than 80%, more than 90% and maybe even more than 99%.

    Now I don’t think I am smarter than others. But I am aware of this inherent human flaw and as the result I constantly question my beliefs. If I hear something utterly nuts, I do laugh but then ask myself what if? Let me look into this even though it is stupid, just in case.

    Since I was a Muslim and then an unbeliever, I can focus in both ways. Since I was an atheist and now a theist, I can focus in both ways. I can easily focus like a Muslim, like an atheist and like a Christian on any issue. So I can see what people with more intelligence than me can’t see. It has nothing to do with intelligence or with knowledge it is ability to change focus.

    If Dawkins wanted, he could easily shift his focus, but he has vested so much interest on materialism that he will not even entertain the thought, lest he finds he is wrong. At this moment materialism to him is a faith. He identifies himself with materialism the way a Muslim identifies himself with Islam or a Christian with Christianity.

    Intelligence is overrated. Intelligence alone cannot help us to find the truth. Can anyone say that Carl Marx, or Nietzsche were stupid? They were very smart and very wrong.

  24. kamose5 says:

    Also, Ali Sina, if there’s such thing as afterlife (no doubt it is), it can only be what you call a “deception”. For your wife would like to see you in the afterlife as a young adult, your son would want to see you as a mature man, your father as an adolescent, your grandfather as a young kid, your great-grandmother as a newborn, you granddaughter as a wise old man etc. How do you accomodate all these wishes, if not through “deception”?

    Turns out that what you call “deception” is exactly the principle on which the afterlife works. My personal view is that you see other souls in the world of spirits exactly the way you most fondly remember them from their worldy existence, and that specific form can change at any given moment in accordance to your feelings. So please stop using the word “deception” here, unless you want to conclude, like Muhammad, that God is the greatest deceiver of all.

  25. kamose5 says:

    Ali Sina,

    I will read your article when I have enough time to digest it. Just answer a question: is it possible for a human walking on Earth (other than Jesus) to fully reflect God?

    Your views about Jesus (God walking on Earth) and your mind-body-soul trinity seem very close to those of Emanuel Swedenborg. Are you familiar with this thinker?

    I still find it distasteful to claim that those who don’t agree with trinity don’t understand.God. You don’t have a monopoly over God. Also, nobody really understand God (naturally). But I will read your article.

    “If people are let to believe things that are not real, could it be that that entire show is a deception?”

    It is NOT a deception, BUT that does not mean it is fully real or can be fully trusted.

    Have you checked my post on how a Sufi could wrongly believe to have had a profoundly spiritual vision of Muhammad?

    I’ll put it another way. Many people, especially those of Abrahamic faiths, are greatly contemptuous of what they call the “idolaters” and their gods. Here are my thoughts on idolatry: even Quetzalcoatl may be real in some sense. Maybe an Aztec or Olmec had a genuine supernatural experience and came in contact with God. But his limited mind could not perceive God in his “full splendor”. Nobody can. A human mind would explode way, way before coming to the “full splendor” of God. In many ancient societies, snakes were a symbol of wisdom. So the Mesoamerican might have perceived God as a feathered serpent because his limited human mind desperately needed a way to cope with the Absolute.

    As you can see, this is NOT deception. The ignorance and foolishness of the Aztec can make him conclude that God is really a serpent with feathers, and not that his vision represented the omniscience of God. In that case, it is not God who deceives, but ignorance.

  26. Nishant says:

    There are several problems with Mr. Ali Sinas reasoning, I will add a few points as much has been covered earlier.
    1) “God does not have His hands in everything. We are free to choose God or not to choose him. We are free to love or to hate. We are free to soothe, to heal, to ease, to amend, or to hurt, to harm, to break and to injure. We do this while we are here in this world and we do it in the spirit world. The difference is that in this world the good and the bad are mixed together and there is a battle between them. As the result evil is mitigated and often defeated. In the other world they are separated. In heaven the goodness of all good souls reverberates and is augmented. In hell evil reverberates and is augmented. In hell all evil souls meet one another and do to each other what they know best. Evil souls don’t know how to love. They only know how to hurt, how to torment, how to cause pain. In this world evil people fear the consequences of being caught. In hell they don’t have to fear anything. They are already in hell. What can be worse than that? So they exercise their sadism on each other without inhibition”
    Such and other such revealations are mentioned as if they are facts. As I said earlier everyone has a working philosophy/ Theology to base our reasons in day to day life; and I have similar beliefs which I need to have to satisfy my intellect; but I would also say after expressing such beliefs (emphatically)that this is my “OPINION” and not pass them on as facts until further evidence changes my opinion(that’s what u didn’t do in your 1st response to D).” I disagree with Christians in their claim that Jesus’ body was divine, that he had a miraculous birth and that his body ascended to heaven. These claims are contrary to science and commonsense.” ; well if there were no christians to inform us about jesus then we wouldn’t have known about him and rest of the matter about heaven and hell which you had written to D also doesent conform to science and commonsense.
    2) It seems that there is a lot of “ shifting of the goal posts” as 1 talks about jesus Christ – and how only certain parts of bible are true (so conveniently done) then about NDEs, then evoloutionary biology and then about quantum mechanics. It is apparent that there is lot of incoherence in all these ideas put together and probably only obfuscates the debate.
    3 As Mr Steve felt when he saw things differently from you in the video about ram that you put to prove your point about conservation of information, I too agree with him. Just to recall-Steve replied:- “Their is no evidence that the information survives – intact – after the death of the brain their is no more evidence for that than the information stored on a CD continuing once the CD has been destroyed. What this physicist was saying in the video is that you can reconstruct the past by knowing the state of the system. So for example if you could somehow store all the data in the universe, (the position and momentum of every particle and energy beam in the universe) at any moment in time you could know the past state of the universe. This means that you could recover a persons consciousness and re create their living brain. Obviously though that is just science fiction.”. I donot think that this universe is a giant computer and I think the conservation of information is a theory put about information in computers and there is a theory of conservation of quantum information. But its applicability in conscious living beings is an over stretched assumption.
    4) I visited the sites you had requested mr Sina and spent some time on them. I think you have a believers eyes  , Like I said we both may be seeing the same things differently.
    ”Hindus will often identify them as messengers of the god of death”. (Kennard, Mary J. “A Visit from an Angel.” The American Journal of Nursing 98.3 (1998): 48-51 ).
    5) NDE’s is not universally accepted accepted fact; other wise kindly cite a reference from any guideline of any neurology or psychiatry association. 1st there is no universally accepted definition for concepts such as consciousness, NDE’s etc, 2nd there is no universally accepted metods of data collection, statistical analysis and interpretation , but they are just individual experiences of people, The only studies I found which had some resemblance to proper clinical studies produced evidence contrary to the existence of NDE’s. (I wonder what happened to AWARE II study)

    .Level of evidence [1]*
    Level Type of evidence
    1a Evidence obtained from meta-analysis of randomised trials.
    1b Evidence obtained from at least one randomised trial.
    2a Evidence obtained from one well-designed controlled study without randomization.
    2b Evidence obtained from at least one other type of well-designed quasi-experimental study.
    3 Evidence obtained from well-designed non-experimental studies, such as comparative studies,
    correlation studies and case reports.
    4 Evidence obtained from expert committee reports or opinions or clinical experience of respected
    authorities.

    Grade Nature of recommendations
    A Based on clinical studies of good quality and consistency addressing the specific recommendations
    and including at least one randomised trial.
    B Based on well-conducted clinical studies, but without randomised clinical trials.
    C Made despite the absence of directly applicable clinical studies of good quality.
    Almost all of the clinical literature is classified on level of evidence and grade of recommendations as mentioned above and until the level of evidence is 1a and grade of recommendations is A, I cannot agree the existence of NDE’s(But who will fund such costly studies for NDE?)
    I would like our forum to discuss the ‘various methods methods to discover ourselves and to discover god’ as a new topic. 1st let us identify which options we have got and 2nd which approach is the best 1, as I am at sea with this.
    Thank You.

  27. Ali Sina says:

    @Kamose5

    “I’m still confused about your views on Jesus; perhaps I haven’t worded my questions clearly. Was Jesus God, yes or no?”

    You will find the answer to this question also, in my article “Trinity for Dummies.”
    http://www.faithfreedom.org/trinity-for-dummies/

    “These NDE are not reports of heaven and hell because heaven and hell don’t exist. Instead, they are reports of the barzakh,”

    That is not what the experiencers say. Some descriptions are very this worldly, like heaven having houses, streets, cars etc. Some are more profound in nature. There are no visual imageries but pure knowledge and pure understanding. This makes me believe people experience heaven according to their intelligence.

    The fact is that this is troubling to me. If people are let to believe things that are not real, could it be that that entire show is a deception? I am extremely tormented by these thoughts. I can definitely say ignorance is bliss. When I was an atheist everything made sense. Now nothing does. But there is no way to go back and to unlearn what I learned. I am kicked out of the paradise of ignorance once again.

  28. kamose5 says:

    I still believe that we don’t have a proof of the existence of God, and we will never have one. If you don’t agree with me, maybe it’s because we don’t have the same understanding of the word “proof”.

    A proof is something that makes doubt impossible. For instance: if you read and understand any proof of the Pythagorean theorem, but still don’t believe that the theorem is true, you belong to a mental asylum.

    People like Richard Dawkins will never believe in God. Dawkins is shallow (even by the extremely low standards of British empiricism), unenlightened and spiritually empty, but he is not pathologically stupid (maybe not even stupid at all). Such people will always to Occam’s razor and other mind-numbing fallacies. For instance: the existence of God is a pretty big claim. You asserted that NDE’s prove that consciousness survives death and God is real. What if consciousness survives death only for one or two hours after death, during which it perceives only illusions, and after that vanishes completely?

    Like you, I find the above claim incredibly stupid. But to many hardcore atheists, it may make perfect sense – and, admit it, you have no way to disprove it.

    You said that some years ago, when you were an atheist, you had some sort of revelation. Did it ever occur to you that this is exactly the reason why the NDE’s speak to you, and don’t speak to many others? They will probably never speak to Mr. Dawkins, no matter how much “proof” and evidence you bring to him.

    Basically, people like Dawkins won’t accept God because they lack the prerequisites to accept God; in Hindu terms, their chakras are not open. Few people claim they can open them, and my best guess is that they are charlatans. If there is a way you can open someone else’s Sahasrara, it is not through arguing and giving “proof” of God.

  29. kamose5 says:

    Ali Sina,

    Thank you for your detailed reply. I would like to hear your feedback on my answer to Commoner too.
    I haven’t read your article on the trinity, but I will. For now, I must confess I believe that I find the claim that those who don’t believe in the trinity have no understanding of God very, very far-fetched. Who knows, maybe your article will convince me otherwise. But I’m very skeptical.

    I’m still confused about your views on Jesus; perhaps I haven’t worded my questions clearly. Was Jesus God, yes or no? I am not talking about his body. His soul was divine – in which sense? Was there any other human with a divine soul? How did God appear in full force in Jesus?

    As for the NDE’s, let me propose another explanation. Just to piss you off a little (in a friendly way), I’ll explain it in Sufi terminology (although my views are not Sufi).

    These NDE are not reports of heaven and hell because heaven and hell don’t exist. Instead, they are reports of the barzakh, that is, the place where souls stay after the death (evidently not the grave, as mainstream Islam suggests) till the day of judgment – according to the Sufis, or till they reincarnate, according to my belief. That barzakh is seen as a barrier between this world when the next which normally cannot be passed, unless in very rare circumstances (the genuine NDE’s). Here souls gain some great spiritual knowledge, can communicate with other spirits and also with the living in some circumstances, but are definitely not all-knowing or infailible – therefore believing to have seen Jesus or Yamraj is not proof that Jesus or Yamraj are there, or that Jesus is God. As far as I can see, the vast majority of the NDE reports come from the countries with the most developed medical systems, that is, Western countries. In India, China or Saudi Arabia, the medical technology hardly allows anyone to return from the barzakh. This is why there are very few Muslim and Hindu NDE reports, and most of them are blatant fakes. I am personally convinced that if one day the medical technology in Mongolia will reach Western levels, some Mongol will “see” Genghis Khan in “heaven”.

  30. Ali Sina says:

    “It is naive in the extreme to believe we can prove or disprove God when we don’t even know exactly what God is.”
    This is like putting the cart before the horse. First we discover something and then learn about it. We still don’t know a lot about evolution, that battle on evolution is as hot as it has always been, among the evolutionists. Yet most people who know anything about science do not deny it. In recent years we have discovered over a thousand planets and yet we know close to nothing about them.
    Whether we will ever know the truth about God or not is something I don’t know. Maybe after we leave the material world we will know Him, or at least some of us will. But the fact that God exist, or at least a spiritual reality exists that transcend the material world is undeniable. The evidence is overwhelming for those who care to look into it.

  31. Ali Sina says:

    @Commoner,
    “I am not getting into God question as I really dont know and have no evidence to undeniably prove either way. Nor I have the competence to prove it through sheer arguments.”

    The proof is there for anyone who wants to see. You just don’t care to see. Maybe it is not convenient, maybe you don’t want to go out of your comfort zone and face the unknown. We are made differently and have different needs. Some go after wealth, some go after power, some seek love, attention, recognition, and some seek knowledge. What has motivated me all my life is the latter. I have always been thirsty for knowlege. So don’t blame on the lack of evidence. You just don’t care to know.

    “We have enough problems due to religion – Islam in particular, now. This needs immediate attention and response from people like us. God question can and should wait.”

    You just confirmed what I said in the above paragraph. You simply have no interest in finding the truth. Don’t blame it on lack of evidence. Knowing and finding the truth are just not your priority. I can’t see any other thing more important than knowing. Who or what am I? Why I am here what I am supposed to achieve? Where I am coming from and where I am going to? Your argument that we have no time to find what the the purpose of our life because we should be busy fighting Islam is only cop out. It is like saying i don’t have time to learn because I am busy cooking. Most people cook but they don’t use that as an excuse to not learn.

  32. Ali Sina says:

    @KamoseS

    “Can you clarify this statement: “He was not a prophet of God or His messenger but his essence. Like the Sun reflecting in a mirror, God, in all his glory appeared in Jesus, the man from Nazareth”?
    I think the example of Sun reflecting in the mirror clarifies my point.

    “What exactly is your view on Jesus? At this point you sound like a Swedenborgian, or worse, a nontrinitarian Christian. Did you come to believe in the divinity of Jesus?”

    Of course the soul of Jesus is Divine. I disagree with Christians in their claim that Jesus’ body was divine, that he had a miraculous birth and that his body ascended to heaven. These claims are contrary to science and commonsense. The physical body of Jesus, like all of us, was being recycled every day. Every day, you defecate millions of your dead cells. The cells composing you now are not the same cells that composed you last year. It is very much like the population in this planet. People die and new ones are born every day. In 100 years the entire population of the planet changes. So what was the difference between the bodies of Jesus at the age of 33 and his body at the age of 27?

    Not only the virgin birth of Christ and his ascension to heaven in body are contrary to science, they are motifs in ancient religions predating Christianity. When Christians cling to these absurd beliefs they open themselves to criticism and rejection.

    The body of Jesus was no different from ours. The ignorant Muhammad who could not understand anything beyond matter used this weakness in the belief of Christians to disprove the Trinity.

    Why do you say I sound like a nontrinitarian? I wrote an article showing how trinity is the only way to understand God rationally. Search “Trinity for dummies.”

    If you deny the trinity of God you deny him altogether. This guy explains the point very clearly.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUy-H5MmeGU
    I disagree with him when he says God is not spirit. God is spirit, just as we are. That is why it is said we are made in his image. Beside that point he makes a compelling point that those who deny trinity actually have no understanding of God.

    Trinity does not deny the oneness of God. It rather confirms its immaterial essence. Please watch the video and read my article on the subject.

    “If yes, what evidence do you have for such a claim? The NDE’s? If yes, why don’t you also believe in Yamraj, the Hindu god of death, reported in many Hindu NDE’s?”

    NDE impelled me to search. It rocked my boat and pushed me out of my comfort zone. I realized there is much that I still don’t know. I had to rethink everything I knew about reality and truth. But the evidence does not come solely from NDE. It also comes through reasoning. Reason is a tool, like computer. Its accuracy depends on the accuracy of the data you have. If your information is incorrect you get an incorrect result.

    As for Hindu gods, I am not familiar with them so I can’t say I agree or disagree. I general I believe a few Indians were able to travel out of their body and they brought some information from the other world that is now confirmed by the modern NDE. Personally I have been trying off and on to do the same but unfortunately I have not been successful yet. There is a wealth of information we can gain if we can travel out of our body.

    “Why don’t you also believe that Buddha is in hell, as reported by several Buddhists?”

    I don’t believe that because I believe God has more commonsense that we humans and sending a man like Buddha to hell is contrary to commonsense. Unless God is a sadist sick being, utterly unworthy of praise, He would not send Buddha to hell.

    From what I have understood so far, God does not send anyone to hell. We gravitate to the souls that are of our kind. If you don’t have enough love and goodness in you, you don’t have enough energy to ascent to heaven. No one decides whether you should go to hell or to heaven. Just as in this world you are subject to physical laws, in the next world you are subject to spiritual laws. A student that does not study does not pass the test. This world and the next world are based on principles and laws.

    “What about the light of Allah or about rabbis in heaven?”
    Why should rabbis not go to heaven? God does not care about our belief. I read NDE stories of people of all faiths and even atheists who went to heaven. The only thing that matters is the amount of love we have. To God it makes no difference whether you are a Muslim or a Christian or an atheist. If you love you belong to Him.
    The problem is that some doctrines, like Islam promote hate. If you really follow Islam you will go to hell. But you won’t go to hell just for being born to a Muslim family and calling yourself a Muslim.
    Why I pick Jesus from among all other gurus? Because he exemplified love in his own life! I know if I follow him I can’t go wrong. You can be illumined by a lamp and you can be illumined by the Sun. I seek my illumination from the “Son”.

    “Do you agree that your previous claims that no one sees Hindu gods and that millions of people see Jesus regardless of religion are absolutely false, or I need to prove it to you?”

    Actually from the 600 NDE stories I read and hundreds that I watched on youtube I have not yet seen one meeting Muhammad or Hindu gods. However, although I don’t deny the possibility of Hindus seeing their gods, if anyone one claims to have seen Muhammad in heaven I would say he has been deceived, just as those Buddhists who saw Buddha in hell must have been deceived.

    Is it possible that everyone is deceived? Yes it is. We could all be inside a matrix. Everything could be deception. Maybe the whole thing is a big lie. Maybe God is using us for his own needs. Maybe we are all cattle in His big farm producing feelings, love, pain, happiness, loneliness, humor, and all other emotions that He needs for His own nourishment.

    The truth is hidden from us. The part that I can no longer deny is that there is a reality beyond the material world. What I can’t understand is its nature. Why the secrecy? What is the point of all this? Is the universe for our benefit or is it for God’s benefit? It is clear that God is hiding something from us. The question is why and what.

    People who saw God say He is absolute love. Is that also a deception?

    When I was an atheist I had sorted out everything. Now I find myself immersed in a sea of questions. What I can’t do is return to that state of oblivion again. I can’t hide my head in the sand and pretend there is no other world other than the hole I see, no matter how tempting and comfortable that may be.

  33. Ali Sina says:

    @Commoner

    “You didnt answer how we can differentiate genuine NDEs from fakes.”

    Can you differentiate between a false testimony and a true one on anything? There is no exact science to know who is lying and who is not. There are methods we can use to have an educated guess. If a story is told by millions of people from different cultures, ages and beliefs it is highly unlikely for it to be false especially when there is no gain for these people to lie. The diversity in details actually validates the authenticity of them. If you ask all those who visited UK to tell you about it, it is highly unlikely that they tell you the same thing. Each person’s account would be different while by putting them together you can makes some sense of the country.

    “We have enough problems due to religion – Islam in particular, now. This needs immediate attention and response from people like us. God question can and should wait”

    Wait for when? Truth is fundamental to our life. If there is life after death everything changes. It means we have to reevaluate the very purpose of our life. If God exists and Islam has nothing to do with it, what better way is there to show this doctrine is a lie? The whole lure of Islam is its promise of the afterlife. Once it becomes clear that those who follow Muhammad to the letter will assure themselves a place in hell NDE becomes our most powerful tool to defeat Islam.

    If this planet can be compared to a ship we would be its passengers. The most fundamental question that all of us must be concerned about is where are we and where are we headed. And you are saying that question can wait until we resolve some other problems. All problems become insignificant when we lose our compass and are stranded in the sea.

    The problem of Islam is very much connected to the fundamental question of our purpose in coming to this world. Islam purports to answer that very question. What better way to show Islam is a lie by showing the truth?

  34. Commoner says:

    Kamose5,

    Thanks for your reply. I think we are in agreement on human limitation – or should I say mine – to resolve God question and differentiating NDEs.

    I thought you are alluding to some supernatural stuff which I have an issue with. My whole premise is not about God. Its about the evil nature of religions and the grip they have over millions of innocent people. Hence I am suggesting like minded people to come together to fight this evil. Even He will be happier rather than fighting over his existence. ;). Any case his presence or absence doesn’t seem to matter to to humans at large.

  35. kamose5 says:

    @Commoner

    Here is my view on some of your points, if you’re interested.

    “Nor I have the competence to prove it through sheer arguments.”

    Yes, and you will never have. No human on Earth will ever prove or disprove God. Much simpler problems than the existence of God are still unsolved. It is naive in the extreme to believe we can prove or disprove God when we don’t even know exactly what God is.

    “You didnt answer how we can differentiate genuine NDEs from fakes.”

    We can’t.

    Let’s say I am a Sufi and my spiritual practices allow me to access some real spiritual knowledge through a supernatural experience. Here’s the thing: the experience needs not be perfect. Nietzsche (who was often completely wrong in spiritual matters) made a probably excellent point when he denied that anything can be done perfectly as long as it is still done consciously.

    Now because my experience probably cannot be perfect, my mind may unconsciously mix the perfectly true spiritual knowledge that I’m receiving with the false belief that I’m talking to Muhammad or to a Sufi saint. Still, the knowledge I receive may be intact, just that I wrongly believe it is from Muhammad.

    Now let’s say I am a complete liar or troll and make up a story in which I was a Muslim that met Jesus in a NDE and that he told me that my faith was invented by the devil. Then I convince 10 other trolls to do the same.

    My question is: which one of these experiences will Ali Sina believe? Certainly, he won’t believe the Sufi one, no matter how much spiritual knowledge has in it, only because it has Muhammad’s name mentioned in it. He would probably say that the Sufi guy is a charlatan, a fraud, a lunatic, and why not, controlled by a very evil entity, He will also say that millions of people have seen Jesus in NDE’s (he said hyperbola is part of Persian psyche; for sure it’s a great part of Ali Sina’s psyche) and that Jesus is the true God and is working to awaken the Muslim world.

    But I’m not blaming him at all. The point is that we cannot differentiate genuine experiences from fakes, and that there’s nothing to guarantee that even genuine experiences are perfect, for the perfection is mixed with our interpretations, which may be completely wrong.

    A final point that is often overlooked. Human languages have evolved to describe natural experiences, not supernatural ones. Therefore, there may be no way to adequately communicate a supernatural experience to another person.

  36. steve says:

    “I’m talking about observations and experiences of my own behaviors,not the universeDo I even need to point out the obvious straw man?” You’re a part of the universe – a infinitesimally small part – so you are just guessing in reality you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.

    .”It does not refute my initial proposition at all.If anything,it confirms it.” No it doesn’t, the past results of coin flips tell you nothing about the result of future flips. The same thing is true with human behaviour.

    “includes consciousness as a integral aspect of the theory,namely the Copenhagen Interpretation” Show me the interpretation which says consciousness creates the entire reality?

    “The universe can’t have an infinite series of past events because (a) infinities leads to mathematical contradictions and are therefore non-existent” their is no reason why the universe cannot be eternal.

    “(b) there exists empirical evidence that the universe had a finite past and therefore a cause” Yes and as I explained before when scientists speak of universe they mean the observable universe they do not mean all that exists.

    “If the universe (the aggregate of its composites) did not have a cause,it would then be the only exception that violates causality” When I say universe I mean everything that exists – the all. The All cannot logically have a cause – since it contains literally everything so their is nothing which can have possible caused it.

    “Thus the origins of the universe is a scientific miracle,according to the Materialist’s reasoning.” The All doesn’t have an origin so this statement is meaningless.

    “And there it is.You’re still stuck in the classical theory” No theory says an actual bus is not real, so stop speaking nonsense.

    “Ah,radical skepticism.I’m a brain in a vat? Is that what you’re getting at?” No I am saying you can’t isolate the brain from the rest of the universe.

    “Also,you have dodged my question.” You said, “Matter and time are composites of the physical universe,thoughts are not” Time is the measurement of time, so when thinking is taking place their is time. You then said “Can you locate a thought in the brain?What are its dimensions,color,temporal properties? If thoughts have temporal properties,one should be able to locate past thoughts and present thoughts with their accompanied events or processes.” I replied you cannot even locate the brain since what we find it is not separate from the rest of the body, which in turn is not separate from its environment. So if you cannot even locate the brain and isolate it, how on earth can you find a particular thought and all its processes?

    “I can imagine something then it exists? This would mean every science fiction book and movie ever published and broadcasted is real because it was first imagined then it was produced on paper or film.” Certainly they exist – as imaginary things.

    “I did not say the First Cause hypothesis is science.Science detects material entities only.If science cannot detect it then it does not mean the phenomenon in question is non-existent.It only means science is limited to material cause and effect” So stop using it to try to answer scientific questions.

  37. Commoner says:

    Dear Sina,

    I am not getting into God question as I really dont know and have no evudence to undeniably prove either way. Nor I have the competence to prove it through sheer arguments. 🙂

    You didnt answer how we can differentiate genuine NDEs from fakes. I doubt if there is any foolproof mechanism.

    We have enough problems due to religion – Islam in particular, now. This needs immediate attention and response from people like us. God question can and should wait.

  38. kamose5 says:

    Can you clarify this statement: “He was not a prophet of God or His messenger but his essence. Like the Sun reflecting in a mirror, God, in all his glory appeared in Jesus, the man from Nazareth”? What exactly is your view on Jesus? At this point you sound like a Swedenborgian, or worse, a nontrinitarian Christian. Did you come to believe in the divinity of Jesus?

    If yes, what evidence do you have for such a claim? The NDE’s? If yes, why don’t you also believe in Yamraj, the Hindu god of death, reported in many Hindu NDE’s? Why don’t you also believe that Buddha is in hell, as reported by several Buddhists? What about the light of Allah or about rabbis in heaven? Do you agree that your previous claims that no one sees Hindu gods and that millions of people see Jesus regardless of religion are absolutely false, or I need to prove it to you? Can you show me a single NDE with someone who’s never heard of Jesus seeing him for the first time in heaven?

    If nope, how can you assert that God appeared in all his glory in a human being? Are you aware of the logical impossibility of that claim?

    To be clear, I’m 100% certain that God exists and the afterlife is real. That doesn’t mean that the gods people see during NDE’s are real, or that heaven and hell are for real (I strongly believe they are not). It means only that our limitations force us to perceive what is happening there in one way or another.

    Finally, even if the NDE’s are completely real and Jesus really meets people in the NDE’s, how does that prove that “God in all his glory appeared in Jesus”?

  39. Phoenix says:

    Your observations and experiences make up all the information in the universe do they? Past results “prior observations” don’t tell you anything about future events//

    I’m talking about observations and experiences of my own behaviors,not the universe.Do I even need to point out the obvious straw man?
    ===
    Their isn’t no order at all, results are constrained for example the result of a coin flip is constrained to be either a heads or tails. The nature of a thing itself constraints the result//

    Your example of a coin toss is an estimate of entropy.It does not refute my initial proposition at all.If anything,it confirms it.
    ===
    Randomness just mean unpredictable it doesn’t mean uncaused. Things have causes thats why their is order and coherent thought is possible//

    I did not say randomness means “uncaused”,so your attack is yet another…dare I say it…straw man.In fact I gave you a dictionary definition.
    ===
    QM doesn’t say anything about consciousness, let alone that it has a special place in the theory.//

    There are more than a dozen,if not close to 2 dozen interpretations of QM,all of which are basically empirically equivalent,and one of them includes consciousness as a integral aspect of the theory,namely the Copenhagen Interpretation.
    ===
    The argument is nonsense, the universe cannot have a beginning – since it contains everything and all beginnings – so the universe cannot possible have a cause//

    Either the universe is infinite or it has a beginning and therefore a cause.The universe can’t have an infinite series of past events because (a) infinities leads to mathematical contradictions and are therefore non-existent and (b) there exists empirical evidence that the universe had a finite past and therefore a cause.If the universe (the aggregate of its composites) did not have a cause,it would then be the only exception that violates causality.Thus the origins of the universe is a scientific miracle,according to the Materialist’s reasoning.
    ===
    The world which me and you live in and experience is the macroscopic world//

    And there it is.You’re still stuck in the classical theory.
    ===
    This raises an interesting, where is the brain? It is assumed to exist in the skull, but when we try to find its beginning and end we are confounded. We discover that the brain is inseparable from the body, which is in turn inseparable from the environment in which it lives. Now where is the mind?//

    Ah,radical skepticism.I’m a brain in a vat? Is that what you’re getting at?
    Also,you have dodged my question.
    ===
    An existent thing is anything observed or imagined. Nothing could be observed or imagined if existence didn’t exist, nor could consciousness identify anything if existence didn’t exist. (Since their wouldn’t be anything for it to identify and be aware of which means it couldn’t exist)//

    Really? If I can imagine something then it exists? This would mean every science fiction book and movie ever published and broadcasted is real because it was first imagined then it was produced on paper or film.
    ===
    And your “first cause” creating life out of nothing is science is it?//

    I did not say the First Cause hypothesis is science.Science detects material entities only.If science cannot detect it then it does not mean the phenomenon in question is non-existent.It only means science is limited to material cause and effect.

  40. Ali Sina says:

    Hi Commoner,

    Whether you need God or not is your prerogative. The undeniable fact is that God exists, consciousness survives the death of the body, and people who die report having seen God. This much is fact. We can be certain these people are not hallucinating because they come back also with this worldly information that they could not gain in any other way than traveling out of their body.

    The question is not whether God exists or not. God exists and there is no doubt in that.. The question is what secrets He keeps hidden from us and why. Why He created the universe? What is in it for Him?

    I have even read form some NDE that there are other Gods with their own worlds. He is not the only God. He is our God but not alone.

    The question is what is the point of creation. Is he somehow benefiting from us? Are we just his life stock? Sheep and cattle may think their shepherd is a great person for taking care of all their needs. What they don’t know is that He uses them and benefits from their milk, wool and maybe even meat. Is God benefiting from us? I don’t think He would create a world if there was no gain in it for Him. What is His gain?

    These are the questions I have. I want to know what is in it for God. Some people asked Him this question and He did not reply them. He told them He will explain everything when they go Home permanently, but since their time has not come he will not tell them.

    I am full of questions but they are different from yours. Things that boggle you do not boggle me any more. I have other questions that boggle me.

  41. Commoner says:

    Dear Sina,

    It shows you are open for an honest discussion and dont hesitate to accept if you dont know the answer. Dont you think its better to be neutral and reserve our judgment on NDEs and its stories until we get some answers for such critical questions.

    In my view, I am 100% sure all religions are manmade and generally evil. Regards to existence of god i really dont know. If we take NDEs or similar such inspirations, revelations and miracles at its face value, then how can we decide which NDE is genuine and undeniable. A muslim might say he saw Allah & Mohammed; a chrisian might say Jesus pulled me to heaven and a Hindu might say it was Lord Krishna whom he saw in the other world. There would be no end to such claims and gullible people would continue to be duped.

    Its better and recommended to help people come out of thier religious beliefs and fanaticism. Rather than trying to look for god. Currently we dont need any god.

  42. pick says:

    Ali, you are a philosopher and that is it. You dream and write what you think is real. You are mixing everything up with your explanation of singularity and wishy washy divine intervention. So sick, so sick. Get a life and be real man!

  43. Ali Sina says:

    HI Commoner

    “If NDE is an undeniable fact then why does it happen only to a tiny fraction?”
    No one knows the answer to this question. It is my guess that it happens to everyone but the memory is wiped out.

    Take the example of Kathie http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Experiences/katie_e_nde.htm
    She says “I have no real memory from the other world that I travelled to, just I have the feeling that I travelled through the most beautiful paradise I have ever seen. When I reached the destination, I spoke to very wise knowledgeable beings, like God or Jesus. These people gave me knowledge and an understanding of the universe, which I wanted to share with people on this earth. Then everything was black again. It felt like all the memories of this beautiful amazing place and the people that I met, all the memories were taken from my mind, like sand falling through my fingers. Then I was falling backwards so fast and the memories were getting further away. I was trying so hard to fight it but the memories would not stay, all I could say to myself over and over was, ‘You must remember where you’ve been. You must remember where you’ve been.’ It felt like they or the other world did not want me to bring the knowledge back and I believe there is a reason for this.”

    “I have heard of similar NDEs in my country but hardly anyone said they saw Jesus or even remotely similar to him. Ours is not a Christian country and its obvious they can’t see Jesus as they didn’t know him in their current life.”

    This is also something I don’t understand. It looks like our experience of the other world is somehow tailored to our memories of this world. The only way I can make sense of it is that forms don’t matter. It is the experience that matters and we are shown familiar forms so as to not to be shocked by a formless reality. As we get used to the other world, forms will eventually disappear and all that remains is the experience itself.

    “I am not trying to make you disbelieve in NDEs or your strong belief in whatever you think as heaven and hell world’s.”

    You can’t make me disbelieve. The evidence is undeniable.

  44. Ali Sina says:

    “Now, because I have a black hole phobia, do you think when I die a black hole could swallow my soul or I could look at it in the eye and laugh at it?”

    LOL! Black holes devour matter only. They have no appetite for souls or consciousness. It gives them indigestion. Don’t worry. Your soul will not be devoured by a black hole. You should be more concerned about evil instead. Evil can devour your soul. Our liberation from evil is love. If you love others, including yourself, you should not fear anyone and anything.

    If I can learn how to travel out of my body, I would be very much interested to get close to a black home and look at it from near.

  45. Ali Sina says:

    Ra,

    While taking shower this morning I thought of an easier way to make my point.

    The physical reality is composed of particles that can be explained as bits of information. Think of a picture. It is nothing but arrangements of pixels. What is a pixel? It is a specific color which can be expressed in hex code. For example AD1300 represents a certain red. 0000AD is a kind of navy blue. F2FF03 is yellow and so on and so forth. Every visible color can be expressed in codes.

    These codes are information and they too can be broken down to ASCII code, and shown in binary integers. All the colors can be expressed as bits of information, which means they can also be computed. Not just colors but everything is information and can be computed. That is why the prevalent idea in physics today is that the universe is a giant computer and we are all characters in a virtual game that is being played as a hologram.

    So, if everything is information and information can be expressed in computable numbers it follows that the foundation of this universe is mathematics. That is why I keep saying God is a mathematician, a physicist, a scientist but not a magician.

    Now since everything can be reduced into numbers, how difficult it is to invent numbers out of nothing? Well actually you can’t, because if you do your mathematical formula does not work. If M = A is true, 2M = A is false. If you multiply M with any number, you have to multiply A with the same number for the formula to work. We can also write this formula as M – A = 0.

    It does not matter what value you give to M; as long as you give the same value to A your formula will work and the sum result will be zero. You can multiply M by one million or ten trillion or even bigger. As long as you give a finite value to M and give the same value to A the result will be zero. You are not violating any mathematical law.
    2M – 2A = 0
    1000M – 1000A = 0
    1000,000M -1000,000 A = 0
    Numbers can be created out of thin air.

    M in this formula stands for matter and A stands for antimatter. Since for every particle of matter there is a particle of antimatter, the universe can grow almost indefinitely and matter can be created out of nothing. The sum result is still zero.

    Can the universe grow infinitely large? No it can’t. When you insert infinity in any formula the formula becomes meaningless. ∞M – ∞A is absurd. Therefore, the universe is not infinite. Infinity does not exist. It is as real as zero. When we say two parallel lines meet in infinity we mean they never meet. Nothing is infinite, not even God is infinite because infinity does not exist. Those who claim God is infinite are actually denying His existence.

  46. steve says:

    “Anyone who still thinks the matter is real should watch the video I posted below” The physical world emerges from the quantum world, that doesn’t mean that the physical isn’t absolutely real. This is like claiming biology is not a real science because ultimately any biological event is in fact trillions of quantum effects.

  47. Ra says:

    Thanx to Ron and to Ali for your replies. Now, because I have a black hole phobia, do you think when I die a black hole could swallow my soul or I could look at it in the eye and laugh at it?

  48. Ali Sina says:

    Anyone who still thinks the matter is real should watch the video I posted below. Go to 26.50 minutes and see what Susskind says.

    Watch also this short video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGAo5uLCPio

  49. steve says:

    Phoenix
    “Why don’t you update your outdated knowledge on what constitutes reality.No physicist in his or her right mind would ever say that matter is 100% and absolutely real” Reason tells you that if an actual bus hits you at high speed you are going to die, the bus is not an illusion or a creation of your mind.

    “No,they are not “just guesses”.They are inductive inferences based upon prior observations and experiences.Your inability to predict your own behavior exposes a lack of self-trust on your own part.” Your observations and experiences make up all the information in the universe do they? Past results “prior observations” don’t tell you anything about future events.

    “Randomness entails unpredictability due to lack of structure,meaning ‘no order’ or ‘purpose” Their isn’t no order at all, results are constrained for example the result of a coin flip is constrained to be either a heads or tails. The nature of a thing itself constraints the result.

    “Surely they cannot produce rational and systematic behaviors,by definition and by configuration” Randomness just mean unpredictable it doesn’t mean uncaused. Things have causes thats why their is order and coherent thought is possible.

    “Even within CI there are sub-interpretations,such as Von Neuman’s and Henry Stapps’ version of the collapse of the wave-function partially due to consciousness.” QM doesn’t say anything about consciousness, let alone that it has a special place in the theory.

    “The Kalam Cosmological Argument remains coherent and sound ie. valid with true premises” The argument is nonsense, the universe cannot have a beginning – since it contains everything and all beginnings – so the universe cannot possible have a cause.

    “You still don’t understand the relationship between the macroscopic and microscopic world,or else you would not say such strange things.” The world which me and you live in and experience is the macroscopic world.

    “Can you locate a thought in the brain?What are its dimensions,color,temporal properties? If thoughts have temporal properties,one should be able to locate past thoughts and present thoughts with their accompanied events or processes.” This raises an interesting, where is the brain? It is assumed to exist in the skull, but when we try to find its beginning and end we are confounded. We discover that the brain is inseparable from the body, which is in turn inseparable from the environment in which it lives. Now where is the mind?

    “Firstly,you need to define what reality and existence is,within your material realm of course.” An existent thing is anything observed or imagined. Nothing could be observed or imagined if existence didn’t exist, nor could consciousness identify anything if existence didn’t exist. (Since their wouldn’t be anything for it to identify and be aware of which means it couldn’t exist).

    “But really? Abiogenesis,no serious scientist propogates such nonsense anymore” And your “first cause” creating life out of nothing is science is it?

  50. Indian says:

    Is this universe manifestation of God or is it creation of God?

  51. Phoenix says:

    The physical world is absolutely real, a bus is absolutely real why you can’t get your head around that?//

    Why don’t you update your outdated knowledge on what constitutes reality.No physicist in his or her right mind would ever say that matter is 100% and absolutely real.
    ===
    No your predictions are just guesses, you can estimate something as being 99.999999% certain and still be absolutely 100% wrong//

    No,they are not “just guesses”.They are inductive inferences based upon prior observations and experiences.Your inability to predict your own behavior exposes a lack of self-trust on your own part.
    ===
    Randomness just means inability to predict future events (at least with certainty). It doesn’t mean all kinds of crazy and mad things pooping into existence with no order at all//

    You have a weird habit of inventing phony arguments.I made no mention of crazy things popping into existence.Randomness entails unpredictability due to lack of structure,meaning ‘no order’ or ‘purpose’.Now let’s ascribe such qualities to behaviors and see what kind of results they produce.Surely they cannot produce rational and systematic behaviors,by definition and by configuration.
    ===
    It doesn’t have to a conscious being, get that? Consciousness doesn’t have a special place in quantum theory.//

    There are many interpretations of Quantum Mechanics with the Copenhagen Interpretation being one of them.Even within CI there are sub-interpretations,such as Von Neuman’s and Henry Stapps’ version of the collapse of the wave-function partially due to consciousness.
    ===
    What irrefutable first cause argument? Can you even tell me what you mean by “first cause”? I doubt it because like everything else you and Sina have said on the subject of consciousness, it is utterly incoherent, which is due to the fact you don’t even have a clear idea of what your mean when you speak of things such as “God” and “consciousness”//

    The Kalam Cosmological Argument remains coherent and sound ie. valid with true premises.
    ===
    Bullshit a bus which runs you over and kills you is not a “subjective concept”, it’s not a creation of your mind but a real physical bus//

    You still don’t understand the relationship between the macroscopic and microscopic world,or else you would not say such strange things.
    ===
    his is just your religious belief. If your intelligent first cause preceded all matter and time he wouldn’t be able to think and do anything – since where their is thinking their is time. “Infinite regress” What the proponents of this “infinite regress” don’t understand is that the infinite past is not a particular point in time//

    Matter and time are composites of the physical universe,thoughts are not.Can you locate a thought in the brain?What are its dimensions,color,temporal properties? If thoughts have temporal properties,one should be able to locate past thoughts and present thoughts with their accompanied events or processes.
    And when did I say the past is infinite? More straw manning.
    ===
    Physical objects are not “concepts” your computer is not a concept in your mind it’s a real physical thing//

    I was refering to identities,just another straw man attack by you.
    ===
    1) consciousness is the faculty which identifies existent things. 2) consciousness needs an object of consciousness (I.e the things which it identifies 3) Without those existent things and indeed existence itself consciousness couldn’t exist and could not function, therefore existence and reality itself is fundamental and not consciousness//

    Firstly,you need to define what reality and existence is,within your material realm of course.
    ===
    Here is a video on the leading models for the origins of life. Ps a first cause magically creating it out of nothing is not one of them//

    Due to time constraints I haven’t lokked at your video yet.But really? Abiogenesis,no serious scientist propogates such nonsense anymore

  52. Ali Sina says:

    Hi Ra,

    Those who say the universe was at one time the size of a sweet pea are mistaken. The universe started as a singularity. Singularity is the name of the tiniest space possible. Singularity is a voxel (unit of volume) whose Cartesian dimensions are one Planck length or 1.616252×10−35 m. It is incredibility small space, the smallest space possible.

    Scientists say, this singularity was infinitely dense and infinitly hot. The reason they say this is to account for all mass and the energy in the universe. However, there is no need to postulate that the singularity was infinitely dense and infinitely hot as I will explain below.

    At this stage matter did not exist and since space and time are properties of matter, they too did not exist.

    Inside this singularity there was one photon, the tiniest particle in the universe. Trillions of photons hit your face every second when you stand in light. As long as there was one photon in one tiny space there was equilibrium and nothing could happen.

    Some external force intervened and either duplicated the particle inside the singularity or inserted a new one. The singularity could hold no more than one photon and therefore the equilibrium was disturbed. The newcomer needed a space of its own and hence a new space was created. That is the property of matter. Matter creates space.

    The two photons collided (to make it fanciful let us say they had sex) and gave birth to more photons. Their babies also reproduced themselves fast and in less than 10-43 of seconds (this is am unimaginably small amount of time) they became astronomically numerous.

    One property of matter is that it creates space and time. With this massive explosive creation of matter, space was also created and expanded at an astronomical rate.

    This incredible burst of expansion is known as inflation, in which space was created and expanded faster than the speed of light. During this tiny period, the universe doubled in size at least 90 times, going from the size of a particle to the size of a golf-ball almost instantaneously.

    Scientists say at this time the four forces of the universe were joined. Actually they were not even applicable. This stage of the expansion of the universe is called Plank Era.

    The next stage which is called The Grand Unification Era took place between 10-43 seconds and 10-35 seconds. At this time gravity was separated from other forces. In other words it became applicable. Where there is no matter and no space, there is no gravity. Gravity is known as a force, but it is actually a curvature of the space. Space is denser closer to the massive objects. Or better said, the plank length shrinks in size, allowing an object falling into the mass to jump from one voxel to another faster. That is how gravity works. There is no such thing as graviton. Since I was in high school I recall scientists were looking for particles of gravity and have not found it yet. They will never find it.

    After this state the universe continued to expand but at a slower rate. As it expanded, it cooled and matter formed. Between 10-35 to 10-10 seconds the strong force (the force that holds the nucleolus of atoms together) decoupled from the electroweak force, (which resulted in the creation of elementary particles such as photons, gluons, and quarks. At the end of 10 -10 second electromagnetism and the weak force separated as well. (The weak force is responsible for radioactive decay and neutrino interactions).

    Between 10-10 seconds and 0.001 second, known as the Elementary Particle Era, the universe was filled with particles. Known as “particle soup.” Various particles continually swapped mass for energy via matter-antimatter collisions.

    You may wonder how could so many particles were created from a single particle. That is not difficult to understand. Let us say you have a great business idea and have no money. You go to your dad and ask for $100,000 loan. Your dad trusts you and gives writes a check for $100,000 and you sign an IOU guarantee that you would pay him.

    Your net value prior to getting the loan was zero. How much is your net value after you got the loan? You now have $100,000 in the bank but you also owe $100,000 to your dad. So your net value is still zero.

    That is how matter is created. It is like credit in the bank. For every particle of matter created, a particle of anti-matter is also issued. If you have credit you can borrow millions of dollars. You did not have to create this money. It is a loan and you have to pay it back. Infinite amount of matter can be created as long as an equal among of anti-matter is issued.

    Matter is information you can duplicate information infinite times. The mainstream physicist today believe that the universe is a hologram. In other words what to us appears as solid and real is actually nothing more than a tridimensional image. The reality is possibly at the edge of the universe, and what we see and what we are is only a hologram.

    380,000 years to 1 billion years after the Big Bang the universe was finally cooled and expanded enough for atoms to form and move through the space. They then stuck together and formed planets. When the size of the planets became big, nuclear fusion took place inside them and they became stars.

  53. steve says:

    Ali Sina
    “Here is what science says” This is not what science says, when your turn off your computer the information in its RAM chips is gone, when a book is burned the information contained in it is gone. Their is no evidence that the information survives – intact – after the death of the brain their is no more evidence for that than the information stored on a CD continuing once the CD has been destroyed. What this physicist was saying in the video is that you can reconstruct the past by knowing the state of the system. So for example if you could somehow store all the data in the universe, (the position and momentum of every particle and energy beam in the universe) at any moment in time you could know the past state of the universe. This means that you could recover a persons consciousness and re create their living brain. Obviously though that is just science fiction.

  54. Ali Sina says:

    “When you turn off your computer the information stored in its RAM chips is gone,

    that is the popular view. Here is what science says. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=865IAZqW41s

    And if you have no time to watch it, for the information to get lost the universe must stop, because the universe is a giant computer, computing you, me and everything in it. This information is never lost as long as the universe is plugged to its energy source. Here is a longer discussion on the subject.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S0IGwKGV6s

  55. Ron says:

    Goebbels had said to Hitler that if you repeat a lie continuously then eventually people will believe it and even psychologists say that you will not be able to distinguish the lie from the truth. Deprogramming it becomes difficult.

    The big bang cannot cause the massive universe. An explosion only causes chaos and not order and finite tuning. We have heard this lie so many times in schools and universities that we take it for granted as truth and do not question it.

    If God is Love why He sends people to hell? is because if there is no ultimate justice than people like Stalin and Mao are models of success which people can strive for. You can grab power, kill your way to the top and you are not justifiable to anybody as there is no case for objective morality. As long as you are not caught doing a crime it is great.

    And if an account of good and bad is kept and you keep on getting lives (rebirth) then you don’t know whether your current action (good or bad) in the current live is giving justice or getting justice done on you.

    A loving God who created you and who is against sin,
    who will reward you with eternal life when you forgive,
    when you return love when someone hates you,
    when you bless someone even when they curse you,
    when you love without expectation,
    when you take care of his creation and specially the epitome of his creation (fellow human beings)
    by feeding the hungry,
    taking care of the sick,
    looking after or supporting orphans,
    widows and the destitute even as we follow the best example of Jesus Christ
    who did the same and even while dying prayed “Father (Almighty God) forgive them (those who crucified him) for they do not what they do”.

  56. Ra says:

    To all the great minds in this forum, scientific and religious, can you explain to me, because I don’t understand it, how come the universe with its billions of galaxies was at one time the size of a sweet pea? Or how God came from nowhere to create it all? Thank you.

  57. steve says:

    Ali Sina
    “Information is physical,” says R. Landauer (1991) “it cannot simply disappear in any physical process. This basic principle of information science constitutes one of the most important elements for the very foundation to our daily life and to our understanding of the universe.”
    When we die, our physical body does not get lost. It disintegrates but its elements are preserved. Matter is energy and energy is not destroyed. Consciousness is also energy. It is energy in the form of information. Based on the law of the conservation of information it cannot be destroyed.” When you turn off your computer the information stored in its RAM chips is gone, it appears to be the same with consciousness, when the physical substrate – the brain – stops functioning it appears the information is also lost.

  58. Ali Sina says:

    “The only way the universe can be conscious is through conscious beings such as ourselves. Only parts of the universe can be conscious, all of it cannot be.”

    You are trapped in your materialistic thinking. I can see it is impossible for you to think in any other way than through materialism. I am afraid this is a limitation you have imposed on yourself and I can’t help you beyond here.

    There is undeniable and irrefutable evidence through NDE that consciousness is independent from the body. You can deny this until cows come home, but you can’t change the facts. There is evidence that people who died clinically came back with information of what happened in the room they were being operated on and in other rooms and other cities, even of the past and the future (which came to pass)that cannot be explained in any other way that by traveling out of their body in spirit. The documentation on this phenomenon is so vast that it leaves no room for denial, except for the hardcore believers. Believers have no desire to look at the evidence lest their entire world view comes down crumbling.

    Materialism is false. As more people come to learn about NDE they will see the fallacy of this faith based doctrine and will leave it.

  59. steve says:

    Phoenix
    “At the fundamental level of physical reality such objects (such as busses) are analogous to pixels in a photo.They are subjective representations of reality,but not the real thing.” The physical world is absolutely real, a bus is absolutely real why you can’t get your head around that?

    “Yes,I can mostly predict my behavior and thoughts.I know that tomorrow I will not plan to kill anyone or shoplift.” No your predictions are just guesses, you can estimate something as being 99.999999% certain and still be absolutely 100% wrong.

    With quantum randomness as a preliminary feature for behavior,one is sure to behave crazy,since randomness negates any and all rational deliberation.” Randomness just means inability to predict future events (at least with certainty). It doesn’t mean all kinds of crazy and mad things pooping into existence with no order at all.

    “Tell that to your leaders” What leaders? If you are talking about famous atheists which one of them says consciousness is an illusion?

    “That would include consciousness per your reasoning” It doesn’t have to a conscious being, get that? Consciousness doesn’t have a special place in quantum theory.

    “Perhaps your individual mind is not required for the universe to exist but according to the irrefutable First Cause Argument,the universe is a product of an Intelligent Conscious Mind” What irrefutable first cause argument? Can you even tell me what you mean by “first cause”? I doubt it because like everything else you and Sina have said on the subject of consciousness, it is utterly incoherent, which is due to the fact you don’t even have a clear idea of what your mean when you speak of things such as “God” and “consciousness”.

    “1.I have already explained above that for the macro-universe to exist,consciouness must be presupposed since macroscopic objects are subjective concepts.” Bullshit a bus which runs you over and kills you is not a “subjective concept”, it’s not a creation of your mind but a real physical bus.

    “2.The First Cause is an Intelligent Conscious Mind that precedes all matter and space time.The other alternative is pre-existing matter that created matter.Circular and prone to an infinite regress.” This is just your religious belief. If your intelligent first cause preceded all matter and time he wouldn’t be able to think and do anything – since where their is thinking their is time. “Infinite regress” What the proponents of this “infinite regress” don’t understand is that the infinite past is not a particular point in time.

    “Identities are arbitrary concepts that are used by a conscious being to differentiate between objects” Physical objects are not “concepts” your computer is not a concept in your mind it’s a real physical thing.

    “Therefore identity presupposes consciousness and can’t be considered the cause of consciousness.” 1) consciousness is the faculty which identifies existent things. 2) consciousness needs an object of consciousness (I.e the things which it identifies 3) Without those existent things and indeed existence itself consciousness couldn’t exist and could not function, therefore existence and reality itself is fundamental and not consciousness.

    “Also,a First Cause is required to produce psychical life since matter cannot produce consciousness” More nonsense life is just a particular structure of matter. Here is a video on the leading models for the origins of life. Ps a first cause magically creating it out of nothing is not one of them. https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PL0696457CAFD6D7C9&v=U6QYDdgP9eg

  60. Ali Sina says:

    “So where did mind come from then if not the physical world?”
    The mind or precisely consciousness is not the function of the brain any more than the Internet is the function of your computer. You can’t access the Internet without the computer, but it would be a mistake to think the Internet is inside your computer.
    Consciousness is a “physical” reality. Consciousness and matter are all the same. The difference is in their frequency. Sound, light, heat, and a chair are all made of the same substance. They differ in frequency. Everything is vibration. Things are differentiated when they vibrate differently.
    Let us take the example of water. In substance, water, ice and clouds are all the same. But they behave very differently. What makes them different? The frequency of their vibration!
    Now take the example of your computer. It is made of some tangible stuff. Like the keyboard, the motherboard, the hard drive, the monitor, etc. But that is not enough for the computer to run. It also needs an operating system. The operating system is a piece of software. The software is not tangible. You cannot see it, touch it or feel it through any of your senses. Yet it is real, and without it your computer will not work.
    What is the substance software is made of? It is information. Information can be broken down into bits – zeros and ones. And what is the hardware made of? The hardware is made of atoms that are made of particles that are made of strings that are information — zeros and ones.
    So, the building blocks of the software and the building blocks of the hardware are the same. They behave differently because they are arranged differently. Water, ice and vapor are the same, but since their molecules are arranged differently, they behave differently.
    Consciousness and matter are different manifestations of information. Everything is information and information is indestructible.
    “Information is physical,” says R. Landauer (1991) “it cannot simply disappear in any physical process. This basic principle of information science constitutes one of the most important elements for the very foundation to our daily life and to our understanding of the universe.”
    When we die, our physical body does not get lost. It disintegrates but its elements are preserved. Matter is energy and energy is not destroyed. Consciousness is also energy. It is energy in the form of information. Based on the law of the conservation of information it cannot be destroyed.

  61. Commoner says:

    Dear Dr. Sina,

    Thanks for you reply.

    If NDE is an undeniable fact then why does it happen only to a tiny fraction? It would be much easier if all of us experience it and able to tell others before we actually go to the other world. I have heard of similar NDEs in my country but hardly anyone said they saw Jesus or even remotely similar to him. Ours is not a Christian country and its obvious they can’t see Jesus as they didn’t know him in their current life.

    As someone had said long ago, revelations are sacrosanct only to the “prophets” receiving them. For others its just second hand information.

    I agree with you that Islam is a lie. So are other manmade religions. This I have no doubt – thanks to sites like yours. As you are an ex-muslim, crooked Muslum apologists could use this to their advantage.

    I am not trying to make you disbelieve in NDEs or your strong belief in whatever you think as heaven and hell world’s. I just want you to be mindful.

  62. Phoenix says:

    A bus not an abstraction it’s a real physical thing which can kill you//

    So elegantly put yet no refutation and no information but that is not what I said of course.At the fundamental level of physical reality such objects (such as busses) are analogous to pixels in a photo.They are subjective representations of reality,but not the real thing.
    ===
    Human behaviour – like everything else cannot be predicted with certainty, so in that sense it’s unpredictable//

    No,your behavior cannot be predicted because you have no fixed moral principles,but that’s another story.
    Yes,I can mostly predict my behavior and thoughts.I know that tomorrow I will not plan to kill anyone or shoplift.With quantum randomness as a preliminary feature for behavior,one is sure to behave crazy,since randomness negates any and all rational deliberation.
    ===
    Consciousness is not an illusion//

    Tell that to your leaders.
    ===
    So, the “observer” doesn’t have to be a conscious being, all it means is anything (such as a rock) which disturbs the system//

    No,you said “the observer is anything”.That would include consciousness per your reasoning.
    ===
    The physical world was here before I was born and it will go on when I cease to exist, it doesn’t cease to exist just because I am not in it or even if their are no minds in it anywhere//

    Perhaps your individual mind is not required for the universe to exist but according to the irrefutable First Cause Argument,the universe is a product of an Intelligent Conscious Mind.
    ===
    I say consciousness is not fundamental and existence is for 2 reasons 1) Consciousness is the faculty which perceives and identifies existents (things that exists). Because consciousness identifies existents there can be no consciousness without something existing to perceive//

    This is a two-fold failure:
    1.I have already explained above that for the macro-universe to exist,consciouness must be presupposed since macroscopic objects are subjective concepts.
    2.The First Cause is an Intelligent Conscious Mind that precedes all matter and space time.The other alternative is pre-existing matter that created matter.Circular and prone to an infinite regress.
    ===
    Nothing can have an identity (to be identified) without existing. The fact that something is identified necessarily implies its existence which necessarily implies existence in general. So there is no consciousness without existence. 2) Because consciousness identifies existents, consciousness itself must exist in order to do the identifying. A faculty can not operate and not exist at the same time. Consciousness is not responsible for creating reality or creating an individual reality. It is completely dependent upon reality. Existence is primary because it makes possible, and is a prerequisite of consciousness//

    Identities are arbitrary concepts that are used by a conscious being to differentiate between objects.Therefore identity presupposes consciousness and can’t be considered the cause of consciousness.Also,a First Cause is required to produce psychical life since matter cannot produce consciousness.

  63. Ali Sina says:

    Dear Commoner,

    Thank you for your concern. However, NDE is not baseless. The evidence is undeniable. It opens a new door to the understanding of reality that nothing else does.

    Furthermore, NDE is truth and I fail to see how truth can be used by charlatans for their agenda. Truth sets us free. It is lies that is systematically used by charlatans. While it is up to each person to accept the truth or not, I believe NDE provides yet another strong evidence that Islam is a lie.

  64. Ali Sina says:

    Yes. The solidity of matter is an illusion. When you clap your hands together, you are moving one empty space against another. Your body is nothing but a field of energy. When you clap, it is two fields of energy that collide against one another and give the illusion of solidity. If you could shrink to the size of a particle, you will not see any of the things you see now. You will see fields of energy.

  65. steve says:

    Phoenix
    “Thus,the macroscopic world is more of an abstraction than an actual solid reality.But obviously this was lost.” A bus not an abstraction it’s a real physical thing which can kill you.

    “And if consciousness is reduced to brain states then it should also behave according to the random and indeterministic laws of QM.But this is contrary to experience.Our mind and its thought system is not random and unpredictable.” Human behaviour – like everything else cannot be predicted with certainty, so in that sense it’s unpredictable.

    “Consciousness is an illusion according to some of your public intellectuals,namely Daniel Dennet.” Consciousness is not an illusion.

    “that still would not detract from consciousness being able to affect the system too.Thus consciousness is still efficacious.Again,this is not neccessarily my take but from your response,it certainly does not rule out the conscious observer.” So, the “observer” doesn’t have to be a conscious being, all it means is anything (such as a rock) which disturbs the system.

    “Show us the path that led to your conclusion.” It’s simple consciousness is not fundamental, a universe can exist without any conscious being in it. The physical world was here before I was born and it will go on when I cease to exist, it doesn’t cease to exist just because I am not in it or even if their are no minds in it anywhere.

    “You have not provided any justification against Planck’s quote,but merely rejected it.” I say consciousness is not fundamental and existence is for 2 reasons 1) Consciousness is the faculty which perceives and identifies existents (things that exists). Because consciousness identifies existents there can be no consciousness without something existing to perceive. Nothing can have an identity (to be identified) without existing. The fact that something is identified necessarily implies its existence which necessarily implies existence in general. So there is no consciousness without existence. 2) Because consciousness identifies existents, consciousness itself must exist in order to do the identifying. A faculty can not operate and not exist at the same time. Consciousness is not responsible for creating reality or creating an individual reality. It is completely dependent upon reality. Existence is primary because it makes possible, and is a prerequisite of consciousness.

  66. steve says:

    Ali Sina
    “The bus does not come to be because we look at it. The universe existed long before we were born and will exist long after we are gone. The universe is not the product of our mind.” Thank you for confirming what I was saying.

    “Consciousness is not limited to us humans. We are only a drop of the ocean of consciousness. Quantum physics proves that consciousness precedes matter. Without consciousness matter cannot exist” Where else could consciousness come from then if not the physical world? Remember above you wrote ‘The universe existed long before we were born and will exist long after we are gone. The universe is not the product of our mind.”. So where did mind come from then if not the physical world?

    “We humans, actually all living beings, are fractals of this universal consciousness” The only way the universe can be conscious is through conscious beings such as ourselves. Only parts of the universe can be conscious, all of it cannot be.

    ‘ Our consciousness is not strong enough to collapse the wave function of large objects. . For universe to come to be, there need to be a universal consciousness large enough to observe every atom in the universe. Only the mind of God is capable of that.” Large objects interact with their environment that’s why quantum effects don’t appear in the everyday day world this has nothing to do with consciousness.

  67. Atheist says:

    Is matter just an illusion ?

  68. Commoner says:

    Dear Dr. Sina,

    I have been a regular reader of your site. It would be an understatement to say that your site, materials and discussions opened my eyes religion in general and Islam in particular. I thank you for that.

    Of late, I have been, unfortunately, seeing in you a trend to argue for existence of God merely in the basis of a few NDEs. While you have every right to believe in the existence of God, your argument seems very stretched to say the least.

    The analogies you use, the “reasoning” you adapt and the conclusion you arrive at all appear to me the same strategy and weapons used by so called Prophets in the Abrahamic religions and Swamijis in the eastern culture. They all ended up creating new religion/cult which started fighting one another.

    My sincere concern is not with your belief in God. That is yours! But your “conversion ” would be potentially used by religious charlatans to prove their own religious ends. Especially Islamists who use every opportunity to propagate their agenda and worryingly gullible people are there to fall prey to their designs.

    I thank you again for your scholarly and in depth articles on Islam that cleared many a doubt in my mind about Abrahamic religion. I only request you to go soft on and slow on your new found belief in God.

  69. Phoenix says:

    @Pick

    Scientists (Like Dawkins ) not only observe but test re-test and make and observation replicated to say that it becomes a fact//

    Can you give me any examples from Dawkin’s work on evolution that can be replicated independently?

    Please do share

  70. Phoenix says:

    @Ali Sina

    Sorry,I did not see your response to Steve before I posted mine.I thought his comment was the last one.

  71. Phoenix says:

    Steve
    \\If you get run over from behind by a bus it doesn’t matter that you wasn’t aware of the bus or you had no concept of the bus you are still going to die. And when I speak of a bus I am talking about an actual physical bus not the idea or the concept of a bus. The bus is not a creation of your mind but is something that can indeed kill you. The physical world isn’t interested in your concepts, your mind though it’s important to you means nothing at all to the larger world, it will bring your existence to an end whether it wants to and their will be nothing whatsoever that you can do about it when it happens, that’s a fact//

    I think Ali Sina was refering to the optical illusion of macroscopic rigid and compact objects at their most base sub-nuclear level.The macroscopic image we see is only an approximate representation,because at their most fundamental level what appears to be solid,motionless objects are in fact rapidly moving particles,with no uniform distribution.Thus,the macroscopic world is more of an abstraction than an actual solid reality.But obviously this was lost.
    ===
    //If understanding the chemical processes in the brain won’t solve the problem then invoking quantum physics certainly won’t – especially since all chemical processes are actually made up of sub atomic particles//

    If what you are saying is true then the brain behaves according to the indeterministic laws of quantum mechanics,which I agree with.And if consciousness is reduced to brain states then it should also behave according to the random and indeterministic laws of QM.But this is contrary to experience.Our mind and its thought system is not random and unpredictable.
    ===
    No one says consciousness is separate from reality//

    Consciousness is an illusion according to some of your public intellectuals,namely Daniel Dennet.
    ===
    The term “observer” is very much misunderstood. In QM, an observer is anything that, in essence, disturbs the system. This could be a rock. Consciousness is not required//

    Personally I lean towards the Unified Field Theory in connection with QM.But that’s my personal preference and beside the point.
    Suppose you are correct that even a rock can disturb the system,that still would not detract from consciousness being able to affect the system too.Thus consciousness is still efficacious.Again,this is not neccessarily my take but from your response,it certainly does not rule out the conscious observer.
    ===
    “Nonsense”

    ‘Nonsense’ is not an argument,it’s a conclusion without a premise.Show us the path that led to your conclusion.
    ===
    No existence and reality itself is fundamental not consciousness, consciousness couldn’t exist or function without existence//

    You have not provided any justification against Planck’s quote,but merely rejected it.

  72. Ali Sina says:

    “If you get run over from behind by a bus it doesn’t matter that you weren’t aware of the bus or no.”

    The bus does not come to be because we look at it. The universe existed long before we were born and will exist long after we are gone. The universe is not the product of our mind. Consciousness is not limited to us humans. We are only a drop of the ocean of consciousness.

    Quantum physics proves that consciousness precedes matter. Without consciousness matter cannot exist. A consciousness that could encompass this vast universe must be a universal consciousness. We humans, actually all living beings, are fractals of this universal consciousness. With the strength of our consciousness we can collapses the wave-function of a particle. To collapse the wave function of all the particles comprising the universe there need to be a consciousness of a different magnitude. The moon is still there whether Einstein looks at it or not. Our consciousness is not strong enough to collapse the wave function of large objects. For universe to come to be, there need to be a universal consciousness large enough to observe every atom in the universe. Only the mind of God is capable of that.

    As Bohr said, “Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you yet, you don’t understand it well enough.”

    However, if we add up our consciousness together, it grows. Every cell in our body is conscious, but when 50 trillions of them join force they generate a consciousness far superior. Likewise if humans unite and join their consciousness together, human race will become able to do things that is unthinkable today.

  73. steve says:

    @Ali Sina

    “We interact with a world of physical objects, but this is only due to the way our brains translate sensory data. At the smallest and most fundamental scales of nature, the idea of “physical reality” is non-existent ” If you get run over from behind by a bus it doesn’t matter that you wasn’t aware of the bus or you had no concept of the bus you are still going to die. And when I speak of a bus I am talking about an actual physical bus not the idea or the concept of a bus. The bus is not a creation of your mind but is something that can indeed kill you. The physical world isn’t interested in your concepts, your mind though it’s important to you means nothing at all to the larger world, it will bring your existence to an end whether it wants to and their will be nothing whatsoever that you can do about it when it happens, that’s a fact.

    “Consciousness is one of the hard problems in science. There is no way to explain how something as material as chemical and physical processes can give rise to something as immaterial as experience. There is no reason why subjective experience exists at all, or how sentience evolved. “If understanding the chemical processes in the brain won’t solve the problem then invoking quantum physics certainly won’t – especially since all chemical processes are actually made up of sub atomic particles.

    “when we actually try to scientifically investigate the origin and physics of consciousness, we get hints that maybe consciousness and reality are not as separate as material science would have us think.” No one says consciousness is separate from reality

    “The quantum object exists indefinitely as a non-local wave until it is being observed directly. Consciousness literally collapses the wave-function of a particle” The term “observer” is very much misunderstood. In QM, an observer is anything that, in essence, disturbs the system. This could be a rock. Consciousness is not required.

    “Essentially, any possible universe that we can imagine that does not have conscious observers in it can be ruled out immediately” Nonsense.

    “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” – Max Planck, Nobel Prize winning originator of quantum theory, as quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931).” No existence and reality itself is fundamental not consciousness, consciousness couldn’t exist or function without existence.

  74. Ali Sina says:

    “Quantum physics doesn’t say anything about consciousness. The material world was around before consciousness evolved on this planet.”

    The reason there is no fun in debating you is not that your knowledge is limited. All of us have limited knowledge. The problem with you is that you refuse to learn.

    Maybe these articles can help
    http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/proof-that-consciousness-creates-reality/

    https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/why-physicists-are-saying-consciousness-is-a-state-of-matter-like-a-solid-a-liquid-or-a-gas-5e7ed624986d

    This is a talk by Max Tegmark. He explains it quite simply. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjhEtqhUZkY

    Consciousness and matter are all of the same substance. What we perceive as matter is nothing but consciousness.

    And http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219

  75. steve says:

    @Ali Sina
    “Matter itself is the product of consciousness. This is known since quantum physics was discovered some 90 years ago.” Quantum physics doesn’t say anything about consciousness. The material world was around before consciousness evolved on this planet.

    “The fact is that saltation occurs and is observed in archeological finds of virtually all species.” No it’s never being observed that a new species comes into existence in one generation.

    “However, in order for his theory to succeed, he had to stay clear from rapid leaps as it would have involved the supernatural, which would have destroyed his theory.” You just said supernatural are you know admitting your “theory” is creationism?

    “One hundred seventy years have passed since and the missing links are still missing.” No their not see this video which lists (some) of the transitional fossils (from 2.45 to 5.35 in the video)

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=EDFJviGQth4&annotation_id=annotation_336064&v=5nj587d5ies&feature=iv

    “But scientific evidence doesn’t go away.” Their is no scientific evidence for your creationism but their is a mountain of evidence for Darwin’s theory.

    “evolutionists are saying saltational evolution should be considered in addition to the many other explanatory mechanisms” What evolutionists are saying this? This theory is not evolution but creationism so no evolutionist is going to say that. Darwinism explains how you get complex organisms over long periods of time, natural selection is what makes improbable things like an eye come about. Eyes and complex organisms don’t suddenly pop into being out of nothing I.e magic they are the result of millions of years of tiny steps of evolution.

  76. Ali Sina says:

    @Steve,
    “Are you claiming that an offspring suddenly is born with a mutation and not just any mutation but a mutation so big the offspring then belongs to another species? And also every single other member of the new generation would have to have the exact same mutation (so they become a part of the same species). This is magic creationism not science.”

    From materialistic point of view it is magic. But the materialistic point of view is false. Matter itself is the product of consciousness. This is known since quantum physics was discovered some 90 years ago. However, what triggers saltation is beyond the point. The fact is that saltation occurs and is observed in archeological finds of virtually all species.

    Charles Darwin argued that evolution occurs gradually via variations within populations. His view was not share by all evolutionists of his time. Thomas H. Huxley was concerned that Darwin had assumed “an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum [nature does not make leaps] so unreservedly.”

    Darwin’s theory would have been much less compelling without such assumption. Had he accepted saltation, i.e., rapid leaps, occurring by some unknown mechanism, his scientific theory of gradual evolution would have been rejected. We can account for gradual adaptation. But no materialistic mechanism can account for sudden leaps comprising all the members of a species. Yet the fossil records suggest that nature does take jumps. Darwin himself was fully aware of it. However, in order for his theory to succeed, he had to stay clear from rapid leaps as it would have involved the supernatural, which would have destroyed his theory.

    He tried to explain away the rapid leaps in fossil records with incomplete finds. He hoped more discoveries will unveil the missing links. One hundred seventy years have passed since and the missing links are still missing.

    Aside from a few heretics such as Richard Goldschmidt and his hopeful monsters, most evolutionists avoided the problem of stasis and abruptness in the fossil record. But scientific evidence doesn’t go away.

    As Biophysicist Cornelius Hunter, author of Darwin’s God, Darwin’s Proof and Science’s Blind Spot says, “Today the specter of saltational evolution persists, and probably is here to stay. In recent years evolutionary studies have increasingly appealed to saltational evolution to explain a variety of biology’s wonders. For the angiosperm flower to Cirripedes (a Darwin favorite) and the turtle, evolutionists are saying saltational evolution should be considered in addition to the many other explanatory mechanisms.”

  77. govind says:

    Ali Sina sir, this sort of matches what you are explaining

    http://www.near-death.com/experiences/notable/daniel-rosenblit.html

    One passage from the experience :

    “I witnessed a lone Hare Krishna devotee with a shaved head who used to chant and dance ecstatically in front of the campus library. Most of the students, including myself, would scorn and/or mock him. I figured this guy had to be the most “whacked-out” person I had ever encountered! I was genuinely scared to get too close to him for fear I too might lose my mind, shave my head, and become crazy like him!

    The thing that surprised me the most here was that the solitary Hare Krishna fellow with the shaved head, who danced and chanted God’s holy names on the college campus, was actually the most exalted in God’s eyes! It was not that his religion was superior to that of the Christians that made him superior, but rather it was the fact that he personally had the greatest love of God. In fact, this particular Hare Krishna fellow loved God so much that he was continually willing to publicly display his praises to Him alone in the midst of ungodly people like myself who continually mocked and scorned him. I was shown that this man was so very much in love with the Lord, that he was oblivious to those of us who mocked him. The soul-talkers had not transcended their egos and were still on the mental platform, but this Hare Krishna devotee was on a transcendental platform of consciousness. Greater than the soul-talkers was he, because unlike them he truly loved God more than his own self (ego). As a result, he was in direct union with God. For him, it was as if the very heavens had opened up, and I saw him encircled by a glorious light. God was by far the most pleased with this individual, and I had mocked him the most! How shocking!”

  78. steve says:

    @Ali Sina
    “As you see, this cleric proved something utterly false with pure reason” First you should know their two forms of reasoning the first is inductive reasoning which is the reasoning used in science and is based on limited data. Inductive reasoning can give probabilistic results but not absolute certainty. The other kind of reasoning is deductive reasoning this is the kind used by in metaphysics and this kind of reasoning provides certainty – if it’s premises are true.

    “In matters of metaphysics facts are not known.” You are talking about scientific facts not metaphysical facts.

    “That is why pure reason can never help us to see the truth” That sentence itself uses reasoning. If reasoning were unreliable then it would be unnecessary to compose such a sentence. Always, reason is the final arbiter.

    “When a species is ready for its next stage of evolution, a mutation takes place and in just one generation a species becomes another.” Your saltation theory sounds very much like creationism. Are you claiming that an offspring suddenly is born with a mutation and not just any mutation but a mutation so big the offspring then belongs to another species? And also every single other member of the new generation would have to have the exact same mutation (so they become a part of the same species). This is magic creationism not science.

    “There are jumps in the evolution of all species, with missing links that gradual Darwinian adaptation does not explain.” By all accounts those “jumps” take millions of years.

    “And the world is not the product of chance either, as materialists think” Their is no such thing as chance.

  79. nishant says:

    I agree with pick… dear d congrats on leaving the evil cult. As for the explanation given by Ali sina, its his personal delusion that he has arrived at from his personal experiences , the NDE articles and mostly from the need of his psyche and intellect to have a working theology, this indeed is needed for a person to base his reasons in day to day matters. However we can turn a blind eye to Ali sinas explanation for he has done stupendous amount of work in liberating Muslims. I would advice u d to be compassionate loving person that u are and not to adopt any body else’s theology but as u mature, make yours own and keep testing, verifying and changing it so that it conforms to universal values of compassion and love. U can do better than this if u adopt different techniques of meditation and yoga to actually and objectively experience the divine.
    This however may require considerable devotion and a lot of time which may not be practicable for you. But till u are definitely and fully enlightened plz do not impose your working philosophy on others, otherwise u come out grandiose. Relax and have fun.

  80. Jerome says:

    Pure reason cannot explain evidence as shared by those who experience NDE. Hence rationalists have no choice but to dismiss these facts as figments of imagination or even as ‘not fact’.

    Ali Sina makes a lot of sense, to me.

  81. pick says:

    Dear D, Please think rationally before you embark and believe of what Sina is telling you about NDE. I cannot believe that he is diminishing Dawkins. I am glad you are not a Muslim as Islam is really evil, as Mohamed was immoral and evil. Thus makes his ideology evil and not true.

    As for you Sina, you are really crossing the line with your reasoning to say that NDE experiences are justifiable and true for sure. Scientists (Like Dawkins ) not only observe but test re-test and make and observation replicated to say that it becomes a fact.
    Now, your videos and stories and your endless links are just plain bogus because any group can do the same. You are just irritating the issue. You know what: Big foot exists, leprechaun exists, Lochness monster exists because people saw them. If this is you idea of science then you are lost and again you are delusional.

    Hey D, Gods are created by humans, heaven hell … are just not real. Now if a God or Gods exist then they are doing nothing for this life and absolutely nothing to this universe and he/she or them are just absent or do not care about this universe. Final. Have a good life, care about others and be aware of charlatans like Mohamed and anyone telling you something that is not scientifically proven. Take care.