A Dump From Skeptiko

Question from Mirek:
for a long time, people have thought that Near Death Experiences are just a result of the brain, I have found some recent cold hard facts which may prove it is in fact a soul at work:
http://skeptiko.com/94-jeffrey-long-near-death-experience-research/
http://skeptiko.com/jeffrey_long_takes_on_critics_of_evidence_of_the_afterlife/
http://skeptiko.com/118-jeffrey-long-responds-to-parnia/

Here is a really good one which totally debunks the oxygen theory:
http://skeptiko.com/critique-of-skeptics-guide-249/

Dr. Long has done so much research which shows that a lack of oxygen only causes confused hallucinations, while NDEs make sense, and are not only fragments of memory. There are also tons of verified out of body experiences, which took place while a person’s brain had no measurable activity. People have been able to travel far distances, hear conversations, and explain exactly what happened while they were out, only later to be verified. Skeptics, how would you respond to all these lines of proof that it cannot be a brain?
1) doctors have debunked oxygen/hypoxia theory
2) drugs also cause weird hallucinations
3) Dr. Long’s recorded out of body experiences which took place in operating rooms came back with 97.5% accuracy
4) Dr. Penny Sartori has tested people who have never been in a hospital setting, asking them to guess what procedures may go on, and they all fail, yet these NDErs can report everything with close to 100% accuracy
5) There are no cultural differences, and all NDEs are very very similar

How could anyone think they are not the spirit leaving the body? So many have been verified, some people even report floating to other rooms and hearing exact conversations.

Skeptics, enlighten me.

Answer by SmartLX:
The conversation on Jeffrey Long, and the NDE material on Skeptiko in general, is already in progress here and here. The hypoxia issue is specifically addressed in the latter so it’s worth checking out what’s already here.

The crux of the issue is that these experiences have not been verified, only supported by their claimants with assertions and occasionally circumstantial evidence. If they had been verified, there would be no serious doubt that they were really NDEs. The evidence presented is good enough for the faithful, and they think this constitutes verification, but it can’t be that subjective.

7 thoughts on “A Dump From Skeptiko”

  1. More total BS from a theist desperately trying to prove his delusional beliefs.

    What has been thoroughly debunked is any evidence of any god at any time. If you theists had any, you would not need to rely upon false promises of a paradise and empty threats of a hell. No facts, but plenty of lies and threats.

  2. Mirek:

    Prove there is a god. You can’t? I didn’t think so.
    Prove there is a supernatural. You can’t? I didn’t think so.
    Prove there is a soul. You can’t? I didn’t think so.

    Why should any skeptic take any such claims as even remotely possible when the only thing we have to go on is your speculation that they exist?

    There is no evidence that the mind exists outside the physical brain. All of the mountains of data and research to date on the brain suggest the mind and the brain are the same thing, and do not exist separately. Can you give me any reason to doubt that? You have no evidence to counter it, so I doubt you have a good reason.

    When people supposedly leave their body, they see things. How? They have no eyes (they’ve left their body remember) so they have nothing to interact with photons. So how do they “see” anything?

    Your conjecture is unconvincing.

      1. I have and they are as much BS as everything else about religion. They have been consistently discounted and only theist-determined delusional fools still think they are anything mystical. I know facts have no place in your life, but they are still facts even if no one believes them. Lies are still lies even if everyone believes them.

        For example, at one time, “almost everyone” believed the earth was flat despite plentiful and obvious evidence that is was not. The world is still a sphere despite what “everyone knows.”

      2. Mirek: I have read many such accounts, including ones that are not accurate at all (you don’t see those on websites promoting religion for some reason).

        The fact that people claim these happened does not prove the supernatural. LX has detailed out in other comment sections various explanations for these claims. The bottom line is that there is no evidence or data for anything supernatural, including god creatures. As I pointed this out already along with the fact that the physical brain is the source of the mind, and you did not comment on that, shows how much you know this to be true…

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