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"-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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http://www.newsweek.com/id/220296?GT1=43002
'Heaven Can Wait'
A new book promises incontrovertible proof of the afterlife. That's cold comfort to those of us left behind.
By Jerry Adler | NEWSWEEK
Published Oct 30, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 9, 2009
Excerpts:
"It happens in the multiverse, the infinitely multiplying complex of worlds predicted by some versions of quantum theory."
"D'Souza believes, even skeptics would like to be convinced."
"The "evidence," of necessity, is indirect:"
"-universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity appear to run counter to the Darwinian imperative to outcompete thy neighbor."
On a spring day last year, three months after the death of my younger son, Max, I opened my front door and saw a butterfly resting on the steps—an Eastern tiger swallowtail, I later determined, a species native to the Northeast but not one I remembered seeing before in the middle of Brooklyn. The date stuck in my mind because, as it happens, it was also my birthday. The butterfly, with its otherworldly beauty and silence, is, of course, a common metaphor for the soul. Its emergence from entombment as a chrysalis may have inspired ideas about human resurrection. In the newsletter of the Compassionate Friends, a support group for bereaved parents, the sudden appearance of butterflies (and birds, cloud formations, and particular songs on the radio) is sometimes cited as evidence of communication from beyond the grave. So let me be clear about where I stand: not only do I not believe it, but I can't understand why anyone would take comfort from it. I would hate to think of Max, with his fierce intelligence and tenacity, reduced to sending mute signals by way of insects.
I was put in mind of this by reading a new book by Dinesh D'Souza, provocatively titled Life After Death: The Evidence, and I can't help wondering what D'Souza, a well-known conservative political commentator starting a second career as a Christian apologist, would make of my experience. To be consistent, he would have to say nothing at all: it is what scientists call anecdotal evidence, useless by definition, and D'Souza's book attempts to build a case on unshakable scientific grounds for the survival of consciousness beyond death. Ghosts, mediums, and miraculous cures by the intercession of saints play no role in his argument, which draws instead on quantum mechanics, neuroscience, and moral philosophy.
Life After Death, along with other recent books including mathematician David Berlinski's The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, physicist Frank J. Tripler's The Physics of Christianity, and The Language of God by the director of the National Institutes of Health, the geneticist Francis S. Collins, constitutes an effort by believers to confront the so-called new atheism on its own intellectual turf, without benefit of scripture or revelation. D'Souza, who likens this to fighting with one hand tied behind his back, is a frequent debating opponent of prominent atheists including Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) and Sam Harris (The End of Faith).
He regards the emergence of such enemies as a God-given opportunity to bring Christian apologetics into the new century. "C. S. Lewis addressed issues from his own era, such as the Holocaust," D'Souza notes, "but today we have new questions—about Darwin, brain science, modern physics, and Islamic terrorism. The new atheists have done believers a favor by putting the issue of faith on the agenda. If I'd written this book 10 years ago, people would have asked, 'why?' "
Some people may still ask. D'Souza takes it as given that we are all consumed with wondering what will happen to us after death, the way all Europeans were in medieval times, and D'Souza himself still is. Believers, of course, need no convincing on the subject of life after death, so D'Souza must address himself to skeptics, who presumably have made their peace with the expectation of personal annihilation. Skeptics may object to D'Souza's mode of argument, which is to state a proposition, present the evidence for both sides with an elaborate if spurious show of impartiality, and proceed briskly to the conclusion that his own preference is obviously the winner. But on some level, D'Souza believes, even skeptics would like to be convinced.
The "evidence," of necessity, is indirect: D'Souza doesn't claim to have communicated with anyone who has died, and he doesn't expect to. Instead, he looks to the human heart, and finds therein a universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity that appear to run counter to the Darwinian imperative to outcompete thy neighbor.
This is a time-honored argument for the existence of a God who created human beings in his image and imbued them with a moral sense, as well as the free will to follow, or ignore, it. Berlinski uses the argument in his book, and Collins credits it with turning him from atheism to evangelical Christianity. (D'Souza acknowledges that the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has offered an evolutionary explanation for human goodness, but he doesn't buy it.) In a Jesuitical display that does credit to his reputation as "an Indian William F. Buckley Jr.," D'Souza turns to his advantage one of the atheists' favorite arguments, God's apparent tolerance for human suffering. Precisely because evil so often goes unpunished in this world, he asserts, the moral code must reflect another reality, in which souls are judged, punished, or rewarded after death. "The postulate of an afterlife enables us to make sense of this life," he writes. It worked for Dante, didn't it?
And if that's not enough to convince you, D'Souza provides a checklist of benefits from believing in life after death: it keeps us honest, gives our lives "a sense of hope and purpose"—and "surveys show" that believers have better sex. It provides "a mechanism to teach our children right from wrong"—a mechanism that those who have been subjected to it tend to describe as a neurotic lifelong fear of going to Hell. And if your smart-alecky kid, full of all that Galileo stuff they get in school nowadays, should ask just where this Judgment business takes place, D'Souza provides you with a response.
It happens in the multiverse, the infinitely multiplying complex of worlds predicted by some versions of quantum theory. In the multiverse, physical laws can take on different values, and matter itself may have a different form, so "there is nothing in physics to contradict the idea that we can live beyond death in other realms with bodies that are unlike the bodies we now possess."
Admittedly, the multiverse, although a perfectly respectable concept in theoretical physics, is supported by no more empirical evidence than the soul itself. Afterlife studies, to coin a phrase, has been an empty field, at least until now. The AWARE study ("Awareness During Resuscitation") is looking at "near-death experiences" (NDEs)—the recollections of people who were revived after clinical death, defined as the absence of heartbeat and the cessation of measurable electrical activity in the brain. People with NDEs sometimes report out-of-body experiences, such as looking down on themselves from above and witnessing their own resuscitations. Obviously, if this is actually taking place—and not, say, a composite reconstruction of memories drawn from years of ER episodes—then the threshold requirement for life after death has been met: the separation of consciousness from the physical brain.
"Near-death experiences show that clinical death may not be the end," D'Souza writes. Thus they support his larger point, that "neuroscience reveals that the mind cannot be reduced to the brain … consciousness and free will … seem to operate outside the laws of nature, and therefore are not subject to the laws governing the mortality of the body." The latter assertion has been at the crux of Western philosophy since Plato, but it's taken until now to devise an empirical test for it. In the AWARE study, randomly generated images will be projected in the rooms of critically ill patients, in locations where they can be viewed only from above—by someone having an out-of-body experience, for instance. If patients who survive NDEs can identify these images subsequently—well, not to overdramatize, but several centuries of materialism in the natural sciences will have to be rewritten. The director of AWARE is Dr. Sam Parnia, a fellow at Weill Cornell Medical Center. He told NEWSWEEK that researchers at 20 hospitals have identified about 600 subjects for interviews. Parnia expects to publish his results in 2010.
I await Parnia's paper eagerly, although I can't imagine it will help fill the hole in my life left by the death of my son. Is there comfort in the idea that Max lives on as a disembodied consciousness in a parallel universe? I want him here with me now, and I would gladly trade my prospects for Eternity for the chance to hug him one more time. C. S. Lewis himself dismissed the capacity of faith to overcome bereavement. "Don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion," he wrote in A Grief Observed, "or I shall suspect that you don't understand."
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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Not all species at once. The Explosion itself took millions of years, and was the explosion of multicellular life, and various forms theorf, but simpler life thrived also, eukaryotes, methanogens, in volcanos, protazoa etc.
I like Dinesh D'Souza since I first read his articles in Bill Buckley's National Review. But I would not say he is always correct, but I will purchase his book gladly.
If one is in any way religious, one could say that evolution and rapid evolution is one of the Creator's primo tools. One can surely get away way with being a creationist--as long as one is NOT a young earth creationist-which is tantamount to saying 'evidence means nothing because I am the voice of the Lord!' and that is evil plus insanity.
The most important thing in all these threads is to decide, what, if anything, can be done to help ourselves. Often, just being informed and discussing it is all we can physically do-as pitful as that is--that is the human condition as it now is.
Spud |
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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Yeah, it is a bit of reworking of the word, but one I feel is important, because the idea of "self-sacrifice" contains a selfish motive! (it's just hidden)
Both self-interest and self-sacrifice hinge on the idea that people exist in a vacuum. Basically, it goes back to the whole A-Tom thing. That people are separate, discrete, things-in-themselves. But actually, we're part of an integrated whole, a fractal.
Self-similarity is the key.
When I do something for another human, I include my own desires/wants/needs/interest, so that BOTH are served simultaneously, and this breeds a desire in the other person to do the same and it turns into a feedback cycle of people helping each other. It's a positive sum game instead of a zero sum game (both self-interest and self-sacrifice are zero sum games). |
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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The relative contradiction between self sacrifice and self motive is described by Sociobiology. If there is more genetic kinship(as in ants or honeybees), there is more tendency toward self sacrifice, since less genetic information is lost.
the more random that sexual reproduction becomes, the more self interest is likely in the species, so that humans are probably the most selfish, yet the most determined to define their itnerests in terms of the group.
Cells can have complete self sacrifice in their functions, because the gentetic information is identical cell to cell.
In herds where there is strong genetic kinship, the tendency to self sacrifice is stronger. in herds that share no distinct genetic kinship, if danger threatens, it's "every man for himself".
Since the genetic replicative algorithm tends to seek replication while minimizing change, genetic tendencies will mainfiest themselves across a broad spectrum which will actually be selfish in those species with the most genetic sharing(ants, bees). This is Dawkins' conclusion regarding the selfish gene. A human is just a gene's way of makiing another gene.
Tryiomg to define it at the "higher" level of consciousness, howeever, is like software trying to alter the hardware on which it is dependent.
You will merely see variations between selfish/altreusitic systems, and still more variations within each system itself.
The paradox maintains diversity. |
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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>you can touch the Cambrian explosion. All species came out from nowhere at same time<
You are wrong again. It was creatures with bodies that arose rapidly.
This was demonstrated in an experiment by Martin Boraas. He and his colleagues bred a single-celled alga in the lab. They then introduced a predator, another single-celled creature capable of ingesting other microbes. Within 200 generations, the alga evolved a way around the threat, which was to clump together into clusters consisting of eight cells each. In other words, the introduction of a predator encouraged the evolution of a simple body plan.
So the real mystery of the Cambrian explosion is not why multi-celled organisms evolved so quickly, but why it took such a long time before they evolved at all.
The answer to this riddle is that bodies are expensive things to have. For instance, collagen (an essential building material for bodies) requires relatively large amounts of oxygen for its synthesis.
But, for billions of years, the levels of oxygen were nowhere near what they are today. There was simply not enough to support the evolution of animals with bodies. However, a lot of the building material for making bodies already existed in single-celled organisms. In modern viruses, we find molecules very similar to collagen, and some of the sugars that make up proteoglycan complexes inside our cartilage are seen in the walls of different kinds of bacteria. They are not, however, used to build bodies, but to help bacteria and viruses invade their hosts.
Therefore, the POTENTIAL for building bodies existed in single-celled organisms, but bodies were not practical because there was not enough oxygen to support such an energy-intensive organism. But, we know from the chemistry of rocks that, roughly a billion years ago, the levels of oxygen rose dramatically and has stayed relatively high ever since. That, finally, made the evolution of bodies a viable prospect and so multicelled organisms did what they always do when conditions are right: Evolved rapidly.
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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>if Darwin theory is correct , we should see hundreds of new species coming out of old species each year.<
Actually, if Darwin's theory is correct, we should NOT see new species coming out of old ones each year.
This is because the theory of natural selection is all about the cummulative selection of tiny steps. How tiny? Well, in one study on the Galapagos islands, an El Nino flood caused large, tough seeds to become rarer than smaller, soft seeds (the opposite was true before the flood). This favoured smaller finches with smaller beaks. How much smaller? One half of a millimeter.
One half of a millimeter. That is the sort of single-step change that each generation of Darwinian selection makes. The sort of transformations that would warrent us classifying an animal as an entirely new species would require the cummulative selection of thousands if not millions of generations. We can only witness such changes in organisms whose lifespans are dramatically lower than that of a single human, such as bacteria.
As for lions, you should take into account the fact that these are animals that are very well adapted to their environment. Natural selection's ability to improve its 'designs' is not limitless. There is only so much strength that can be given to bone; so much power that can be given to muscle. Every change comes with a cost, and eventually the costs always outweigh the benefits. A lion is almost certainly the best solution to the problem of evolving a predator that fits into the environmental niche to which that particular big cat belongs, when you take into account the constraints under which natural selection must operate.
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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>Darwin's theory is bullshit. And you have to prove it is true before it can be acepted. There is no proof.
NO NEW SPECIES AT ALL IN 5000 YEARS, STARTING FROM BILLIONS OF SPECIES. SO SPECIES DO NOT FORM AS DARWIN SUPPOSED.<
According to Darwin's theory, it is the accumulation of almost imperceptably small changes that makes the transition from one species to another possible. It also means that, unless something causes a gap between these transitional forms, the whole concept of species is nonesense because the continuum from one to another is too smooth to make such distinctions possible.
Because the fossil record is so patchy and most species have gone extinct, we can easily seperate humans and chimps into two species. But if all the intermediate species were alive today, or if we had a complete fossil record of all the common ancestors that share the evolutionary branches of these two species, you absolutely would not be able to tell where, precisely, the species we call 'human' (or any one species, for that matter) begins.
It also means that, according to Darwin's theory, the idea that you can wait around and see a new species suddenly pop up is not going to happen. It is a transitional process ocurring over many generations, not a case of a monkey giving birth to a human.
Of course, we discover new species all the time. But such discoveries typically happen in remote regions where the population has been cut off from their own species elsewhere (genetic isolation is a key factor in the whole process of making species, after all). The idea that you can sit around and actually witness a new species evolve before your very eyes is just daft, given how slowly such a process unfolds. The nearest we have come to that is in breeding wolves to perform specialised tasks, thereby creating dogs like the Great Dane and the Dachsund. These two dogs cannot mate naturally- it is mechanically impossible. Therefore, they are two seperate species but we still think of them as both being a type of dog- ONE species. |
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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Least by reference of our current Three Dimensional perspective d. Which suggests 'God' must by point of fact, be Alien by reference of this dimension? -To that, if in fact we're collectively ONE, then time is truly non-existent, and space is communally habitable in multi-form?
Thereby God and/or infinite 'speciation', or what is our myriad experiential manifest form throughout mutl-u-expression thereof: whether in the past present or future, is simply our self-reference in disguise of same? Provided an adequate dimensional perspective/Singularity(?) Then we're able to readily acknowledge this actionable-solidarity and perpetually express ourselves void necessity of deliverance from contrast, all be it an infinitely diverse interaction?
I heard an account a few years ago d; and any that may be interested- of this Billy Mier fellow who was in earthly-manifest contact w/Pleiadians, as they called themselves. Humans from the future as dimensional-reality necessarily suggests. In any event, from his early childhood on into his adult years he was chatting it up with'em. The thing i'm getting at is the story was really interesting in that Billy is supposedly the character of Jesus. And apparently the Pleiadians took him for a jaunt through this dimension and that, and they went back so Billy could visit Jesus, or himself from the past.
Seems Billy passed on some helpful insights and at one point had to punch himself/Jesus in the mouth to get his attention. LOL! As i recall it explained; Jesus was a bit of a curmudgeon and foul tempered. :) -In any event, they went to get some photo-shots of the Dinos, that have mostly been looted from Billy's possesion. I saw a video about'm that had one of the shots he took from the craft. It was an incredible thing to see.
Another note you may find of interest, is he apparently fancied himself an assassin in his early adulthood. A Killer of Killers, was how it was relayed to me. I think that came to an abrupt end when he got his arm tore off in a bus accident? As it is, this story was tied into the last stand depicted in the bible, where Jesus returns as promised, yet seen as the enemy by all. Which was then wrapped up in regard of MacArthur's assertion that the next great war would be intergalactic. Which he did say incidentally. The thrust of it was that establishment/elitist-gov interest would need to convince the world their was threat from Alien-life in furtherance of globalist design.
:)
Wild, to consider yes. Nevertheless it suggests that the character of Jesus in the future, who must by natural consequence be literal & figurative 'speciation' in and of the character, or manifest depiction-what have you, of Billy in our present-dimensional awareness. And the character of Jesus of the past, and countless others throughout the multi, which is compelling on a lot of counts. Least as it concerns the significance and latitude represented by a technological singularity. Amounting to what must be an effective bridge of clarified activity were enamored to one measure or another.
A 'there' defined and appreciable by all, d. I know you'll be diggin' that. :) Good stuff i thought, as well. Should have mentioned this to the forum before possibly.
Cheers
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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What interests me personaly, are not theological piss fights, which can be interesting from a historical basis, rearding who said what about whom, and for what reasons. What grabs my attention is the How questions, such as how would you do this effect?
Whether one takes a religious approach, or bases their hopes on scientific capabilities, I always find myself ponder the How of it all, which, I feel, would best illuminate the Why. Questions to be asked might be; How did you do the loaves and fishes thing, or How did you get the sea of reeds to part or...well, you fill in the blank of your own questions.
Go a-religious one might ask: How do you get quantum archeology to work, or is quantum archeology the same as quantum resurrection, or How do we get the cosmos to perform an omega point function, or how might we get a neutron star to do essentially the same things, sans global cosmology. See, the How is essential I sbelieve. |
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Argumentum ad Ignorantiam
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NO NEW SPECIES AT ALL IN 5000 YEARS, STARTING FROM BILLIONS OF SPECIES. SO SPECIES DO NOT FORM AS DARWIN SUPPOSED.
Dear franco,
Well, to be honest, scientists have NOT been continuously observing all of the planet's millions (not billions) of species over the past 5,000 years, and the fossil record is kind of spotty. In fact, scientists are STILL busy cataloging the Earth's species, discovering new ones everyday. NO scientist would claim: "We know exactly how many species existed on this planet 5,000 years ago, and we know exactly how many exist today, and not a single NEW speices has appeared during that period of time."
I have thus disproved the basic premise of your argument and thus refuted your argument (which was an "Argumentum ad Ignorantiam," i.e., an appeal to ignorance).
The lack of evidence is not evidence of a failure of Darwin's Theory. It is more like a proof of an inadequacy of our archeological abilities.
You're welcome!
Regards,
Redakteur |
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Re: "-incontrovertible proof of the afterlife."
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""there is nothing in physics to contradict the idea that we can live beyond death in other realms with bodies that are unlike the bodies we now possess.""
I will try the short version of an answer to this..If possible..
In the mwi, at the moment of death in one reality, there is always the probability one will live in a diverging reality.
As time goes on, from birth to "death", there ratio of worlds in which we contiue to live is very high early one, and lower as time goes on, but we are talking of almost virtual infinities (perhaps, ten to the power of hundreds of thousands).
In 5 dimensions, we have what is possible according to our laws of physics, and in 6 dimensions, alternate laws of physics.
One could argue that someone born hundreds of years ago in some very small fraction of worlds, could still be alive in a very unlikely and "lucky" (for the person) version of reality in which the one in a trillion likely hood that a strange combination of dna mutations, or "unlikely" combination of herbs and food additives, could give the person hundreds of extra years (but he/she being the only one in that reality), ect.
Once (and if) the laws of physics don't support indefinite life spans in the normal sense, then,perhaps, the "unlikely" idea that consciousness bleeds over into the 6 dimensional matrix in which the laws of physics are different.
Well, not exactly a short version, and not easy to articulate a good explaination in a short time of how this could be likely...
Now, off to the gym and then to work.
You all have a great Friday!;) |
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