How can you possibly believe in a benevolent God

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Once more, acts of 'god' have left communities blown apart.

Does any one really feel these vilages deserved it?

God's a bit of a cunt at times.

It is not up to that person to prove that their expérience didn't take place when they think it did, or that their experience didn't really take place at all. If others don't believe them then it is up to those people to prove the experience didn't take place so that they have evidence to back up the claim of not believing them.

It is totally up to the person making the claims to justify their claims if they are a scientist, making a scientific claim in a book called "Proof of..." and want their claim to be taken seriously by other scientists. Of course it is up to them to prove. Who else?

person making the claim to start investigating why they themselves are wrong then that would make life very easy for a lot of criminals. What you are suggesting is just illogical.

scientists, criminals, illogical. it's all coming together.

It's also not up to them to determine the scientific or evidentiary basis for that experience, given the vast number of things they cannot know.

They report their experience. That doesn't mean anyone else has to accept it happened the way the individual thinks it did, because of numerous issues already raised on this thread about brain function and what we do know about it.

They experienced seeing their god? That doesn't mean their God exists; the most likely explanation given the evidence base is that their brain translated what was happening into what they wanted or expected to see.

Otherwise, based on the evidence we have, you would have to posit the co-existence of Christian and Hindu gods as a minimum.

He has is reasons and his reasons don't do him any professional favours.

bestseller book.

His motivations don't make science. I of course don't know his reasons, but that not a question to which I am begging the answer to. So your evidence is that his incentives point in another direction? that's evidence?

my evidence crazy

I'm just providing a counter argument. Nothing is ever solid until all avenues are explored.

Also how do we know Alexander isn't working to prove his claim. We simply don't.

Maybe he's braindamaged, or maybe his NDE just made him move away from everything he held as fact previously and made him want to explore more. Who knows, I do know that when it comes to the mind and what it is, many more doors of investigation need to be opened, not closed. I no longer make claims about god in any direction. Others have their own reasons for their beliefs, but one thing is for sure, they are ALL just beliefs.

Some comments on here are quite offensive to people who have a faith. Play nice peeps!

Also how do we know Alexander isn't working to prove his claim. We simply don't.

we don't. Until he has more evidence, however, I will assume his claims are baseless, because that's what you do with extraordinary claims.

Who knows, I do know that when it comes to the mind and what it is, many more doors of investigation need to be opened, not closed.

I don't disagree.

Others have their own reasons for their beliefs, but one thing is for sure, they are ALL just beliefs.

classic. No, they aren't just all beliefs. Some assertions have evidence, some don't. The ones that require little evidence are mundane assertions. The one's that require more are extraordinary ones. Extraordinary claims that have little evidence can be dismissed out of hand until sufficient evidence appears. That's the way it goes.

Ew. Let people believe what they want. There's worse things going on the world than people linking natural disaster to God.

I made the OP, and there have been some other posters who have suggested that may be I was being offensive.

Here's my response:

If a person tries to convince me that their believed god is omnipotent, and therefore in charge of all earthquakes and other causes of death and destruction: Then I will argue that their god is indeed a bit of a cunt

If a person argues that their god loves people and cannot stop some of the global disasters, I would listen.

Extraordinary claims that have little evidence can be dismissed out of hand until sufficient evidence appears. That's the way it goes. No that's actually not how it works, thankfully, because if they are dismissed out of hand then it is very unlikely that sufficient evidence will just 'appear', usually it requires investigation to find the evidence. I suggest somethings are unlikely because there is a lack of evidence, suggesting they are unlikely is not the same as dismissing.

OK. There is absolutely no hard evidence at all for the existence of a God or gods. Common sense and empirical observation suggests there isn't. A person in a coma appearing to see a god that matches their cultural image of a god and remembering this when they wake up just can't be taken as any sort of evidence at all. I recently had a very vivid dream about my long dead mother. This can not be taken as evidence that she actually visited me in spirit form. It is not up to people who don't accept their experience as reality to prove it's not true. It's up to the person making the claim to prove it. Which Alexander, considering his profession, is in quite a good place to have a go at. It's a little odd, therefore that he now spends his time writing books on pseudoscience, lecturing and generally living the life of a prime woo-merchant.

No BigDorrit but they are trying to discover the cause for NDE's. So that doesn't fit into what you claim, but happening it is none the less.

This is fruitless. A lot of people don't fully understand WHY NDE's are interesting to certain scientists and how they fit into the consciousness debate in general. It's an interesting topic and I know some people have gone away from this thread and looked at it in more detail. That's made me happy enough. Goodnight to you good people.

It has occurred to me that it's possible, on a quantum level, that the brain may look as if it's dead, but it may still be working at an extremely low level that is not able to be detected by current EEG's. It may simply be that when surfacing from the coma, the brain can produce some magnificent dreams that may be interpreted as NDE's.

Understanding that the brain may need to be at least low-functioning level to interpret what Dr Alexander believed he saw, and what he saw may just be his brain's interpretation of a dream.

It seems that many people believe in god because they don't particularly like the possibility of there being nothing after death. A nice image of Jesus and a white bearded guy called god visiting you after death can comfort people. That's fair enough. They can believe what they want, but if those beliefs haven't been proven to actually exist, then they shouldn't be taught as fact in schools. Not just that, but I think children should not be indoctrinated until they are at an age when they can make that decision for themselves.

if others don't believe them then it is up to those people to prove the experience didn't take place

So when you read about people who have seen leprechauns, 6ft human/moth hybrids, aliens and any other thing/experience you are obliged to believe all of them until you can personally disprove it. Nonsense! I bet, and hope you don't use that system for determining reality in your everyday life.

Yes, scientists are looking into NDEs, but only because they are interested in finding out how the brain works. No they are more interested in understanding how conciousness works and what the brains role is. A lot is known about how the brain works on a biological level and quite a bit is also known about which brain areas are active during certain mental tasks. But science cannot currently reduce the mind to functions of the brain.

NDE's are a scientific anomaly. Anomalies are often rejected, overlooked or sometimes ridiculed. Those that study them are not going to be doing so from the current materialistic paradigm. They usually have a dualistic perspective, and recieve very little funding. The very nature of science though is to question theories that fall short in explaining the structure and behaviour of a particular aspect of the world.

So when you read about people who have seen leprechauns, 6ft human/moth hybrids, aliens and any other thing/experience you are obliged to believe all of them until you can personally disprove it.

AGAIN - I suggest somethings are unlikely because there is a lack of evidence, so no I am not obliged to believe all of them until I can personally disprove it. You have completely misunderstood the difference. I have never stated that I believe NDE's are supernatural, in fact I have stated the opposite on several occasions.

Then you haven't really read what I've written.

Hakluyt and Chiggers have both looked at quantum theory in relation to NDE's, I also mentioned DMT being a possibility. I have never suggested that anyone look for supernatural explanations. So I know not everyone has misinterpreted it.

What I have said is that what people may intepret as supernatural may in fact be aspects of nature that we do not understand. That we cannot dismiss anything because it cannot be accounted for with our current established view of the world. What might be incorrect is our current established view and not the actual experiences themselves.

I suggest somethings are unlikely because there is a lack of evidence

But there is as much evidence for NDE's pointing to proof of an afterlife as there is for the fanciful list I posted below such as leprechauns and so on. How do you suppose leprechauns are not actually real?

we cannot dismiss anything because it cannot be accounted for with our current established view of the world.

see previous response...

""I have never stated that I believe NDE's are supernatural"
Yes you have. You just have a different definition of supernatural to everyone else.....

tomatodizzymum, you simply can't avoid the fact that it is for those who assert that a state of affairs exists to prove them; you cannot demand that others prove a negative. You don't even have to look at the leprechauns example to see the inevitability of that. If I claim that you promised to give me £10,000 it would be up to me to prove it; I would get nowhere demanding that you pay me because you can't prove that you didn't. If I claim to have broken the world 100 metres record, again, it is up to me to prove it, not for Guinness or anyone else to prove that I didn't.

And following on - there is nothing wrong with a person saying 'I had this experience'. But when they take it further - 'my experience proves X' - the onus is on them to demonstrate that X has been proved.

When people say 'I was abducted by aliens, so they exist', we can accept that they believe they were without either accepting they were abducted by aliens or that this is proof of extraterrestrial life.

The burden of proof lie with the person making a positive extraordinary claim. So if anyone claims that god or leprechauns or fairies exist, then it is up to them to prove that their chosen entity is true and real.

If I created a religion where the tenets were to do good to one another, never cheat, lie, steal or kill, and if you do you would be punished by a 5-headed monster called Steve. We would all know it to be false and the burden would be on me to prove that Steve actually exists