Dualism (Identity)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 19:56 (3537 days ago) @ David Turell

DHW: As regards NDEs, David tells us that many patients claim actually to have met dead people. You have referred to them as providing support for your analogy, so you must know this. Are you then claiming that those patients are lying, or deluded?
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> > Tony: Deluded or lying are both very negative statements. Perhaps misled, misguided, or even conned might be better put. I think that they see something. I think that they believe what they see is really what they think it is. So no, I do not think they are lying or deluded. However, from a biblical perspective the are not speaking to the dead.
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>David: Since I am dragged into this discussion I have to step in to support my point of view. I understand your point of view that the Bible is infallible, but you have sidestepped the repeated observation that the NDE'rs not only 'see' the dead, they learn confirmable information they could not otherwise have discovered or known previously. How do you view this aspect of the experience, since new information is exchanged, that is, new for the experiencer? It seems to me you are denying the concept of a 'heaven' with a gathering of souls.-No, I have explicitly said that they do not see the dead; that they have been duped, beguiled, misled, conned. I have been trying to limit my direct references to the bible, but since it seems I need to be explicit, let me elaborate. (2 Cor 11:14) "even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.." That there is a heaven is not a question, though I do not believe it to be what pop-culture makes it out to be any more than I believe in Dante's version of hell. However, I do believe in angels and demons that are locked in a 'spiritual war'. I do believe in angelic/demonic creatures that can and do interact with humans. -I also believe that 'the dead are conscious of nothing' and “The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all . . . Their love and their hate and their jealousy [all of which they felt while alive] have already perished.” (Ecc 9:5,6) “The dead do not praise [God]; nor do any who go down into the silence of death,” (Psalm 115:17).-All of that said, I am perfectly willing to accept that there is a large difference between clinical death, and real death. We know that humans die in stages, which is why I can accept NDE's which are "NEAR" death experiences. However, if the dead have no thoughts, love, hate, jealousy, or even worship god (which kind of shoots that whole pop-culture heaven thing in the foot, which not-so-incidentally originated as a Babylonian myth, as did hell and purgatory), how can they talk to anyone? So if it is not the dead, then who could it be? Who would stand to benefit by deceiving people into believing something that is not truth? The father of the lie, perhaps, via his servants? These creatures are witnesses to all that goes on around the world, and it would be trivial for them to supply external misleading information to a susceptible individual. -As for your last statement, I am categorically denying the pop-culture version of heaven with immortal souls of all the dearly departed plucking their harps and sitting on fluffy clouds. Not only is it patently ridiculous for reasons I won't go into in this thread, but it is also completely and utterly unscriptual.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.