The Sermon Part 2 (Agnosticism)

by David Turell , Friday, August 01, 2008, 19:45 (5956 days ago) @ George Jelliss

But David has made clear in other threads that he is prepared to accept anecdotal evidence (such as of near death experiences), and also to rely upon evidence presented by people like the Discovery Institute who have a clear creationist agenda and are pariahs of the peer-reviewed scientific community. Thus despite his claims, his standards of "objectivity" are not scientifically adequate. - I wish George had reviewed what I have written here in other threads. I have made it quite clear that 12 of my patients described NDE or OOB (out of body)experiences, which piqued my interest. I then read several books and articles on the phenomenon to come to some conclusions. First of all these are not hallucinations. As a physician for many years,I know an hallucination when I hear one. Most of the the NDE folks see and communicate with dead people, not living. The patterns of the stories are all very similar and coherent. Some of the stories from the literature that I quoted in my book have third party corroboration: when the person with the NDE is told that someone has died during the episode and that it is true, and the NDE'r had no way of knowing it beforehand, is corroboration.Further in the Lancet article, introduced by me, by van Lommel (spelling?) it shows that there is a level of consciousness that appears and can work at memory even though the EEG is flat, that is, no cerebral activity. - Further George uses the Discovery Institute in a perjorative way, like Dawkins, the polemicist. I am Jewish, not Christian, and I have carefully reviewed their science. I don't care about their Christian endevours. Their science is of great interest. - Like most atheists I've met George looks at only his side of a question.