His story recounts how he was given a scroll to eat that tasted like honeycomb and this saintly figure told him that when he would go to the world and tell his story he would never have to use an translator because he would speak each and every language correctly.
During the four days of his telling he used a translator who, according to the translator, manny used three languages in every sentence and was difficult to understand never mind to translate.

I think to love these storytellers is compulsory but we don’t have to tolerate them in order to love them.

Oh Lord help us to know evil from good as Your Word says we will.

If not, how does it seem fair or unbiased to pass judgement on something that hasn’t been experienced?

I’m not going to look for tips on running from a quadrapelegic man.

Reverend Billy Graham, said, “I believe in Heaven, and I believe in Hell”.

Charton Heston said in his New Testament video, “It is a matter of faith”.

A Yale University, England Theologeon Student said in his Final Paper, He had examinded the history of The New Testament, and found that The New Testament wa supported at every place by recorded history”.

The Bible says it’s words will not return void, they are as powerful as a two edged sword, such as, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending”. Revelation 1:8.

Be encouraged, in the Bible it says, “….God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentence”. 2 Peter 3:9.

The Bible talks so much about hell, the unquenchable fire which has smoke that ascends up forever. A place that once you are finally dead and there, it has been designed so that there is a gap and no man will be able to pass out from hell into heaven, it is a permanent resident of eternal torment.

Also in the Bible, it tells humans over and again, not to fear. I know that humans tend to be fearful. In brief, If you choose to believe that Jesus is the son of God, sent to earth to die for the sins of man and women. If you repent (change your life to try to do your best to keep changing your soul to be like His spirit through your life with Him), just believe that Jesus did come to earth to save, not to condemn, and only believe in Jesus whom God has sent, this is what one must do to gain entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.

From my personal experience as a Christian of 15-16 years, Jesus is the closest, dearest, warmest companion, ever. I love Jesus and His Father so dearly; even though it is not as much as He loves all of us. He is full of mercy over and over again, even when we can least expect. He is kind, He is emmensly creative, He creates elaborate beautiful environments, He is holy, strong and courageous and no one triumps against Him. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, so He enjoys the properity of his servents.

Also in my experience, when things seem hopeless and we think we cannot face God, I believe this is hell and Satan, because he tries to keep us in darkness and chained and lies that God will not have us, but God said, He will never break a bruised reed; he who is not against us is for us; in no way will He cast out any who come to Him. He Loves Us Greatly!!

If one cannot provide a coherent, sensible definition for a claim one makes, it is difficult to provide evidence for it. Also, in the act of not making sense, it is nonsense.

Now that I’ve finished defending my choice of words, I can’t help but notice you seem determined to dismiss all my arguments as being made on the basis of ideology rather than because I believe they are true. (By “true,” I would like to specifically reinforce that the word means factual, and present in the real world.) It strikes me as a bizarre way to approach the matter, and a bit reminiscent of poisoning the well. “Don’t pay any attention to him; he’s a materialist – of course he’ll make arguments defending materialism!” Would it not stand to reason that I would make arguments defending my own viewpoint? Am I being intellectually dishonest by doing so? What other arguments would I make?

All sciences – including the medical sciences – are inherently materialistic. The scientific method evaluates empirical evidence and determines what is true based on the conclusions it gleans therefrom. Sometimes the conclusions are wrong, but as a whole, science tirelessly moves to correct itself. If you have a vendetta against materialism, you have a vendetta against science. It is more than simply “fashionable;” it is the source of all technological advancements we have made as a species. It is the reason we are able to have this conversation, over a network that could only have been developed with an acute understanding of how to create a worldwide network and computers to access it. We could not have made it if we thought satellites were held in orbit by cherubim, or if gremlins ran inside hamster wheels to power our CPUs.

So when we conclude – and this next clause is very important – for the time being that NDE-like visions occur when a brain is deprived of oxygen, based on what (admittedly little) we know about the brain and what happens to it when it is, in fact, deprived of oxygen, it is because it is internally consistent with what we know already and that it is more parsimonious than creating a new plane of existence to explain these phenomena. There could be some utterly different explanation for it that makes perfect sense. I can assure you with almost complete conviction that it will not be supernatural. If it is, then it will be unprecedented.

“Miko, I think you’d soon miss Kant if his work disappeared and Leibnitz wasn’t exactly an idiot, both were rather eccentric but both were rather greater thinkers than Dennett or Harris.”

ovlzl

You are obviously a man of discernment and fine taste, I dislike the a-historical nature of some of the debate on these sites, Liebnitz and Kant were giants of their age, and it is easy to dismiss them for their religious sympathies in an age when there was no real alternative to religion, in a centuries time Harris, Dawkins et al may also be dismissed as simpletons, but will remain great thinkers of their age. The whole point of science as I understand it is the gradual accretion of knowledge and to dismiss the great minds who framed earlier debates is insulting.

I realise this has been done before, but it does make me wonder if athiesm has ever inspired something as sublime as Dante or Milton, or even the KJV bible, anyone want to tell me what I should be reading after Dante?

And if we can’t use Occam’s Razor unless the question is adequately defined, then perhaps NDE advocates should tighten their definition so we have something to work with. Nonsense is as hard to disprove as it is to prove.

You are assuming, to start, that people who are talking about their own experience are “advocates”, that isn’t accurate in all or even, I’d guess, most cases. They are telling what they’ve experienced. They have no obligation to define anything except what they’ve experienced.

Your position that their experience is “nonsense” is actual advocacy of a position, I’d guess of the typical materialism that is in vogue these days. Someone acting as an outsider commenting on the reports of personal experience does have an obligation to not speculate on things such as the oxygen levels in the brain, brain activity, etc. which, presumably, weren’t tested at the time of the reported experience and so which can’t be known. To come up with a general assertion about the nature of the entire range of reported experiences, assumeing just to begin with that they are all the same kind of event, carries even greater obligations. At least if you are interested in the truth instead of ideology.

The fashionable assertions of “Occam’s razor” or its related tools in these areas are an attempt to replace these responsibilities with buzz words, that only compounds the nonsense.

Miko, I think you’d soon miss Kant if his work disappeared and Leibnitz wasn’t exactly an idiot, both were rather eccentric but both were rather greater thinkers than Dennett or Harris.