Atheistic Neuropathologist Sees Christ, becomes Orthodox Priest

[liquidpele]

Why don’t you find them convincing?

Well, technically this is evidence of a soul or whatever right? The problem is that it’s not very good evidence. First of all, it’s anecdotal. Second, it’s not reproducible (there are thousands of near death and resuscitated people every day, yet only a very small fraction claim such things), third the stories usually have a central theme but are not exactly the same and often differ on key points, and fourth other evidence regarding to brain seems to contradict the notion of such experience as being beyond just in their mind. Thus I tend to toss these stories up as delusions, implanted memories, and hallucinations.

I’m sure the people believe them honestly and thoroughly… but so do people who claim to have been abducted by UFOs. I might have already shown you this video, but this sums up my stance on it:

youtube.com/watch?v=zfAzaDyae-k

 

[Harpazo]

Wait, so this guy had an experience, became an Orthodox priest and then was a pastor at a United Methodist church? How is this a good story?

In Christ,
Andrew

 

[liquidpele]

Everyone has heard previous stories?

Au contraire mon ami…

Children and people from other cultures that have not been exposed to Western education, narratives and concepts report remarkably similar NDEs.

This similarity despite disparate cultural influences is often cited as evidence that NDEs are the product of neurological processes during the process of death.

Atheists also report them - why would an atheist use supernatural concepts to explain their experience?

I’m going to need citations for people that have NEVER heard such stories or stories about what happens after you die that also had a similar experience. I’m I’m not talking about a “bright light” experience that could be explained by something physical like your eye nerves going nuts, I’m talking about “I saw the devil or Jesus and talked to them” or whatever.

 

[tonyrey]

Well, technically this is evidence of a soul or whatever right? The problem is that it’s not very good evidence. First of all, it’s anecdotal.

I have pointed out that ultimately all evidence is anecdotal.

Second, it’s not reproducible (there are thousands of near death and resuscitated people every day, yet only a very small fraction claim such things)

Can you reproduce every event you believe to be true?

third the stories usually have a central theme but are not exactly the same and often differ on key points

Do reliable witnesses always concur on every detail? What do you consider to be the key points?

and fourth other evidence regarding to brain seems to contradict the notion of such experience as being beyond just in their mind.

Do you believe any experience is non-physical? If not why not?

Thus I tend to toss these stories up as delusions, implanted memories, and hallucinations.

That is an inevitable consequence of your physicalist assumptions. No matter how much evidence there is you would reject it as false!

 

[Fran65]

I honestly believe that God Himself could appear to some people and they would still tell Him that He does not exist or excuse the experience as an hallucination.

We have freewill, some will believe, some won’t. God knows that.

 

[liquidpele]

I have pointed out that ultimately all evidence is anecdotal.

Can you reproduce every event you believe to be true?

Do reliable witnesses always concur on every detail? What do you consider to be the key points?

Do you believe any experience is non-physical? If not why not?

That is an inevitable consequence of your physicalist assumptions. No matter how much evidence there is you would reject it as false!

Ah… here we go with the onslaught of questions full of implications…

You claimed that but I reject that as being true.

No, but I don’t ask others to believe something that I can’t prove.

What makes a reliable witness? They’re all just people. I haven’t studied it enough to name off everything… remember this is my own opinion. Key points include any specifics beyond “I saw life after death”. Who they met, what they were dressed like, what they were told, if they were out of their body or somewhere else entirely, etc.

I believe a non-physical experience is possible, but I find the notion extremely unlikely. Everything I know about the world seems to confirm that things are all physical. You might say you can’t look at the physical and see any evidence of no-physical, but if that’s true then you can’t claim to know about anything that’s non-physical anyway.

My beliefs do bias how I look at the situation, as it is will all people. However, saying I would reject any evidence is not true. If everyone who died and was resuscitated saw the exact same thing I think I would find it very convincing.

 

[liquidpele]

I honestly believe that God Himself could appear to some people and they would still tell Him that He does not exist or excuse the experience as an hallucination.

We have freewill, some will believe, some won’t. God knows that.

I don’t think that’s really true… I think upon real evidence atheists would be very willing to accept such things as truth. IF God appeared to me, I would likely consider that it might be a hallucination, but upon considering that I had no reason to hallucinate and that I had no other symptoms of schizophrenia, I would likely believe. Unfortunately, the assurances of other people regarding anecdotal evidence or shapes of Mary on toast just doesn’t cut it for me, I hope you at least understand my position.

 

[liquidpele]

I’m done for the day, later guys

 

[tonyrey]

                           Quote:
                                                                  Originally Posted by **tonyrey**                     [forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=5774948#post5774948)                 
             *I have pointed out that ultimately all evidence is anecdotal.

Can you reproduce every event you believe to be true?

Do reliable witnesses always concur on every detail? What do you consider to be the key points?

Do you believe any experience is non-physical? If not why not?

That is an inevitable consequence of your physicalist assumptions. No matter how much evidence there is you would reject it as false*

Ah… here we go with the onslaught of questions full of implications…

Can you ask questions without implications? Surely that is what a discussion is all about - to follow our implications to their logical conclusion…

You claimed that but I reject that as being true.

So you never rely on other people’s accounts of what they have experienced and observed?

No, but I don’t ask others to believe something that I can’t prove.

Let’s put it another way. Can every event people believe to be true be reproduced?

What makes a reliable witness? They’re all just people.

“They’re all just people”. Are you implying that no one is a reliable witness?

Key points include any specifics beyond “I saw life after death”. Who they met, what they were dressed like, what they were told, if they were out of their body or somewhere else entirely, etc.

I don’t think these details show that their testimony is false.

I believe a non-physical experience is possible, but I find the notion extremely unlikely.

Do you believe all your thoughts and decisions have a physical cause?

Everything I know about the world seems to confirm that things are all physical. You might say you can’t look at the physical and see any evidence of no-physical, but if that’s true then you can’t claim to know about anything that’s non-physical anyway.

What about yourself? After all your knowledge begins within your mind not in external reality…

My beliefs do bias how I look at the situation, as it is will all people. However, saying I would reject any evidence is not true. If everyone who died and was resuscitated saw the exact same thing I think I would find it very convincing.

You are demanding a standard of proof far beyond that which is normally required even in science.

 

[Fran65]

Who is talking about seeing the image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast?

Completely irrelevant.

As for ‘knowing whether you have other symptoms of schizophrenia’: the hallmark of psychosis is not knowing that one is not experiencing reality. To the person with schizophrenia everything they experience is real. The hallucinations, the delusions, the need to engage in bizarre behaviour all makes complete sense to them. In the midst of psychosis they cannot be reasoned with. Sorry, but you are unlikely to know that you are hallucinating when schizophrenic. It is only in retrospect once treated or the psychosis is over that one realises that they were symptoms and not reality.

 

[reggieM]

Wait, so this guy had an experience, became an Orthodox priest and then was a pastor at a United Methodist church? How is this a good story?

In Christ,
Andrew

True, but I guess we’re looking for some kind of bare minimum to get started. The leap from atheism (from someone raised in the anti-God Soviet system) to faith is a very good part of the story.

 

[liquidpele]

Who is talking about seeing the image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast?

Completely irrelevant.

As for ‘knowing whether you have other symptoms of schizophrenia’: the hallmark of psychosis is not knowing that one is not experiencing reality. To the person with schizophrenia everything they experience is real. The hallucinations, the delusions, the need to engage in bizarre behaviour all makes complete sense to them. In the midst of psychosis they cannot be reasoned with. Sorry, but you are unlikely to know that you are hallucinating when schizophrenic. It is only in retrospect once treated or the psychosis is over that one realises that they were symptoms and not reality.

The toast: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4034787.stm

Your point about schizophrenia is good though, my point was just that I think really impressive evidence would be impressive even to atheists.

 

[liquidpele]

Can you ask questions without implications? Surely that is what a discussion is all about - to follow our implications to their logical conclusion…
So you never rely on other people’s accounts of what they have experienced and observed?
Let’s put it another way. Can every event people believe to be true be reproduced?
“They’re all just people”. Are you implying that no one is a reliable witness?
I don’t think these details show that their testimony is false.
Do you believe all your thoughts and decisions have a physical cause?
What about yourself? After all your knowledge begins within your mind not in external reality…
You are demanding a standard of proof far beyond that which is normally required even in science.

You and I have been down this road before… I’m honestly just not willing to get into another question-answer spiral. I’ll just leave it at that I don’t find such arguments convincing.

 

[Kamalayka]

(From the August 2003 Reader’s Digest)

Stopped heart and no brain waves

What is important about this story is that with no brain wave function, no heart function, and blood being drained from her - Pam’s is a case that just about rules out any “hallucinations” from chemical or psychological reasons. Combine this with the preponderance of evidence from thousands of similar near death experiences - and any thinking person would have to be led to the belief that the “soul” is cognitive, and that it survives death.
A mother of three, 35 yea
r old Pam Reynolds lay on the operating table in the summer of 1991 with a life-threatening bulge in her brain.

Doctor Robert Spetzler, the director of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix had arranged for Pam to be hooked up to a brainstem monitoring machine. And other machines tracked Pam’s heatbeat, temperature, breathing and other vital signs. Additionally, Pam’s eyes were taped shut. Pam was also under anesthesia. Doctor Spetzler had to stop Pam’s heart which caused all bodily signs to cease.

Shortly after Doctor Spetzler turned on the surgical saw to begin cutting through Pam’s skull, Pam felt herself “pop” outside her body and hover above the operating table to a position where she could hover over Doctor Spetzler’s shoulders where she could observe the operation on her motionless body below.

From this position she saw Doctor Spetzler working on her with a saw which looked to her like an electric toothbrush. Pam heard and reported later what nurses in the operating room had said and exactly what was happening during the operation.

A little while into the operation, Doctor Spetzler ordered that Pam’s blood begin to drain from her body. Still every monitor attached to Pam’s body registered “no life”.

Pam found herself going from monitoring the operation above the table to traveling down a “tunnel” which had a light at the end. At the end of this tunnel Pam could see her relatives and friends waiting, including her long-dead grandmother. Time and all worries seemed to stop for Pam.

It wasn’t long, however, before a “dead” uncle led her back to her body.

Reentering her body felt to Pam like “plunging into a pool of ice”.

 

[celluloid]

He was in the morgue, being pronounced dead three days earlier.​

There are people who have NDEs, who are blind, yet during their experience can see the environment.

I’m aware of such cases and I’m not here to debate the supernatural implications but simply express a naturalistic perspective. There is a (pardon the pun) body of literature that tells about people who’ve been buried alive or placed in morgues and survived, and without the NDE aspect. These people simply woke up in morgues because doctors are often overworked human beings. Whether they’re truly miraculous recoveries or they simply survived under freak circumstances is for others to debate.

The point I bring up is what do we mean by being “near” death. It’s an important question because you have to define the difference between being close to death as a matter of circumstance (being almost hit by a train) or merely an apparently unresponsive state that is hard to distinguish from actual death. I the former case it is clear that the person is only near death in the sense of circumstantial proximity while in the latter case the person only seems to be on the edge of being beyond help. But their recovery says otherwise.

In that sense, a person with advanced alzheimer’s is truly closer to death because of the irreparable brain damage than a fully recovered NDE ever was.

 

[Fran65]

In the advanced alzheimer’s case that you cite the person is not ‘closer to death’. Other than brain damage, all other physiological funtions are funtioning normal until the person enters the process of death - which occurs when the damage starts to involve the brain stem and/or secondary infections start to affect primary systems.

 

[celluloid]

In the advanced alzheimer’s case that you cite the person is not ‘closer to death’. Other than brain damage, all other physiological funtions are funtioning normal until the person enters the process of death - which occurs when the damage starts to involve the brain stem and/or secondary infections start to affect primary systems.

Alzheimer's Association:

Myth 2: Alzheimer’s disease is not fatal.

Reality: Alzheimer’s disease has no survivors. It destroys brain cells and causes memory changes, erratic behaviors and loss of body functions. It slowly and painfully takes away a person’s identity, ability to connect with others, think, eat, talk, walk and find his or her way home.

Which state would you rather be in? Advanced Alzheimer’s or any of the traumas that led to NDEs?

 

[Fran65]

Irrelevant.

Do you have a relevant point to make?

 

[celluloid]

Irrelevant.

Do you have a relevant point to make?

Yes, just that from an atheist perspective these people are not near death in a qualitative sense.

IOW, precariousness of one’s condition does not necessarily equal qualitative proximity to death. My point is that actual nearness to death in NDEs is in the eye of the beholder, to put it fairly.

 

[ChadS]

Wait, so this guy had an experience, became an Orthodox priest and then was a pastor at a United Methodist church? How is this a good story?

In Christ,
Andrew

I was thinking the same thing myself. I was wondering if perhaps what the article meant or the writer didn’t understand is that perhaps he was an Orthodox priest that served an Orthodox mission that happened to use a United Methodist church as their meeting place also.

ChadS