Life After Death

The BEST stories of People who have seen HEAVEN and HELL.

Hear the awesome stories of 16 people, who were eyewitnesses of the SUPERNATURAL, and saw Life after Death, Jesus, Angels, Heaven and Hell.

YouTube

The title clearly says 'after death'. So are these people ghosts?

I'm sure I did a thread recently on why this kind of stuff isn't convincing or viable evidence...

Oh yes... So I did...


Why eyewitness testimony isn't reliable or sufficient for extraordinary claims.
Or why I wont [and we shouldn't] accept your 'personal experience' as evidence

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?subject=Why_eyewitness_testimony_isn%27t_reliable_....&threadid=162877

also...

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/520156/memory-is-inherently-fallible-and-thats-a-good-thing/

http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/02/04/oliver-sacks-on-memory-and-plagiarism/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2011/10/28/the-fallibility-of-human-memory/

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=fallibility+of+human+memory&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=uNLcVK-PJIqAUZ-1g4gG&ved=0CCAQgQMwAA

Aron Ra [back in the day] did a series of youtube videos called
"Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism" in which he debunked
a whole set of creationist [or just theistic] beliefs, arguments,
or claims.

His 4th, linked here:

YouTube

Deals with faith, and how you cannot know something you cannot show.

The transcript is here:

http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/4thFFoC.html

Expanding upon the point made in my OP, and the discussions that followed
[at least the ones on topic ] I have just come across a great example and
explanation of why it is that you cannot just trust that an experience you
have is necessarily real.

The relevant part starts 15:15 into this recording of The Atheist Experience TV show.
It's about 8 minutes long, and well worth watching.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/58869531/theater

The topic is about Sleep Paralysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
which is a condition in which you partially wake and are unable to move and
in which you may have hallucinations, sometimes extremely vivid and occasionally
terrifying. They are a likely explanation for people claiming to have been abducted
by aliens [these hallucinations can have a sexual element] or, in latter centuries by
angels or demons.

For those claiming personal experiences as evidence or proof of god, and who claim
that they know that god exists because of a personal experience. I ask how it is that
you can possibly know that the experience was real given that we know how our brains
can deceive us?

Oklahoma Freethought Convention 2011 (speech 4 of 5) - AronRa
YouTube

The whole speech is pretty good, but the relevant bit starts here: ~16:38 mins in.

YouTube&feature=player_detailpage#t=998

And the discussion of hallucination starts 33:00 minutes in.

He's a good speaker, so it's worth the time.

Science absolutely says that eyewitnesses are unreliable.
Not by any means absolutely unreliable, but it's much less reliable than most
people believe and it's far to unreliable to be evidence for extraordinary claims of
the supernatural or gods.

The Dangerous Unreliability of Eyewitnesses
YouTube

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-eyewitnesses-in-the-z/

http://people.howstuffworks.com/eyewitnesses-unreliable.htm

http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr06/eyewitness.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_testimony

http://www.simplypsychology.org/eyewitness-testimony.html

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm

http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php

http://theweek.com/articles/480511/eyewitness-testimony-unreliable-trust

http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/trialevidence/articles/winterspring2012-0512-eyewitness-testimony-unreliable.html

http://www.law.yale.edu/news/2727.htm

http://atheism.about.com/od/parapsychology/a/eyewitness.htm

Originally posted by googlefudge
I'm sure I did a thread recently on why this kind of stuff isn't convincing or viable evidence...

Originally posted by googlefudge
I'm sure I did a thread recently on why this kind of stuff isn't convincing or viable evidence...

Oh yes... So I did...


[b]Why eyewitness testimony isn't reliable or sufficient for extraordinary claims.
Or why I wont [and we shouldn't] accept your 'personal experience' as evidence

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?sub ...[text shortened]... aw.yale.edu/news/2727.htm

http://atheism.about.com/od/parapsychology/a/eyewitness.htm[/quote][/b]

Originally posted by twhitehead
No need for all those references. RJ himself - and all other posters on this forum, already accept that testimony of this nature is unreliable.
There was a thread a while back in which sonship at first suggested that he found such testimony reliable, but the moment I mentioned the existence of equivalent testimony that gave a different result, he backed ...[text shortened]... find a YouTube video of 16 Muslims who have seen Allah, RJ will not accept it as valid evidence.

Originally posted by twhitehead
No need for all those references. RJ himself - and all other posters on this forum, already accept that testimony of this nature is unreliable.
There was a thread a while back in which sonship at first suggested that he found such testimony reliable, but the moment I mentioned the existence of equivalent testimony that gave a different result, he backed ...[text shortened]... find a YouTube video of 16 Muslims who have seen Allah, RJ will not accept it as valid evidence.

No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Muslims refer to their god as Allah. Their god is actually Satan, the great deceiver, who transforms himself into an angel of light.

No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.

(2 Corinthians 11:14-15 NASB)

Originally posted by googlefudge
Just because it says something in the bible, that does not mean that it is true.

The bible is not evidence for the truth of the claims in the bible.

So given that, and given that you have just made an assertion of fact...

Prove it.

For we walk by faith, not by sight

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For by it the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Originally posted by RJHinds

For we walk by faith, not by sight

(2 Corinthians 5:7 KJV)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For by it the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

(Hebrews 11:1-3 KJV)

Originally posted by sonhouse
More and more circular arguments. If you don't understand circular argument, try googling it.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Don't you also believe by faith that things are made of thing which we do not see?

Originally posted by googlefudge
No!

Of course I don't.

Have you not read ANYTHING I have written here over the years?

I do not believe ANYTHING on or by faith.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Or at least that HER personal experiences and memories are not valid evidence.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You don't even believe in electrons, protons, and neutrons or gravity?