What's your story of why you're an atheist?

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Yet no one has published this evidence, or if they have, it has not made any impression, whatever can it mean.

You came to a public atheist debate forum to claim you believe a deity exists, but that any explanation would be pointless, I just laughed so hard I gave myself hiccups.

Why would anyone, when there is not one shred of objective evidence for the claim?

Then evidence it as best you can.

People believe all sorts of unevidenced nonsense, often without any objective evidence at all, this tells us nothing about those beliefs, except that many people set the lowest possible bar for credulity when they favour a particular belief.

That is precisely what it means, evidence by definition involves an available body of fact and information. However if anyone wants to believe the shiny thing they saw in the sea was mermaid, they can knock themselves out, but you brought these beliefs and claims here, and want to try and ringfence them from critical scrutiny, hardly a new technique for proselytising religion, it’s the soft sell, but you still came here to peddle superstition to the heathens.

Explain the best evidence this has, and why you think this, and offer a citation, it’s tedious to explain bare claims like this are meaningless. The last one you offered was a nutjob who believed dogs were telepathic, his “research” has been almost universally rejected by the scientific community as biased and sloppy, and improperly evidenced.

This guy is peddling NDE’s again, since all the people are in fact alive, but in cardiac arrest, how exactly does this evidence an afterlife?

Yes it’s astonishing how often the claim can be made anywhere, but there are very strict rules imposed about when and where this “evidence” can be offered.

It absolutely is, and they absolutely are in the sense there is no objectively verifiable or empirical evidence for all those things. They exist only in the human imagination.

Claims for supernatural magic would not be accepted in court, and no scientific idea would ever be accepted based solely on a subjective experience, that is simply a lie. Testimony is just a posh word for claim here, and personal means it is unevidenced, personal testimony = unevidenced claim.

Nope, how much objective evidence supports the unevidenced claims determines whether they’re given any credence in a scientific context. Which is why these crackpot "studies” you keep linking have been rejected by science.

Firstly it’s arrogant to assume those bare unevidenced claims have not been considered, they have also been rejected, as one would have to accept all such claims as evidence, so someone claims they saw a mermaid, or were beamed aboard the mothership would have to be lent the same credence, or claims for wildly different deities from different religions.

This remains a false equivalence, as no lawyer would get away with unevidenced claims for the supernatural in court, and to imply this is an evidentiary standard science would accept is simply a lie.

Will you be offering anything beyond bare subjective claims, or personal testimony as you call them?

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Like people claiming they saw mermaids for example.

NDE’s involve people who are alive, or more accurately being kept alive by medical science during cardiac arrest, how does a bare unevidenced subjective claim by someone in cardiac arrest but whose brain is alive, evidence that we can survive our own deaths? Explain the evidence, keep it simple, and offer a citation, then explain why this “research” has been rejected by mainstream science if it has any scientific merit?

I see a claim, I see no evidence to support this claim? I also just checked every global news network, the Catholic Herald, and a few of the more worthy scientific publications, and none of them are ticker taping the news across the screen that we have evidence of an afterlife, I checked both the names you offered and their claims have been widely rejected among by science, and their research techniques panned. The first guy you offered believes dogs are telepathic, based on anecdotal claims they got excited when their owners were due home. If you think that is a standard acceptable to scientific rigour, it’s hard not to laugh.

Yes you are, you came here and made a raft of claims, and are asserting more than once that it would be unreasonable not accept the woeful standard you’re offering as sufficient credible.

Nothing you have linked suggests this, as can be amply evidenced by it not happening other than as the pet project of people who already hold such beliefs, he wider scientific community has not bothered with this nonsense, as it is either unfalsifiable and therefore untestable, or there is no evidence for the conclusion you and they are drawing. Someone (allegedly) imagined something while in cardiac arrest, so what?

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That would be consciousness without information. Seems silly (or perhaps pointless).

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So we can add silly and pointless to unevidenced, untestable / unfalsifiable, and having no explanatory powers, and of course add the objective evidence that we only ever see human consciousness in conjunction with a functioning human brain, and of course it disappears when that brain dies, and is impaired when that brain is impaired.

If someone is to claim my consciousness can or did exist without my brain, why then did my consciousness not start until after I was born, and my brain fully formed. If my consciousness is immaterial why did it disappear on three separate occasions, as a result of my physiology being anaesthetised.

I can’t bring myself to put a question mark at the end of those facts, as those observations must surely be rhetorical to any objective or impartial observer.

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Yes but that touches on what your evidentiary standards are.

I have no problem with theists who say, I believe this by faith and have no need to impose that belief on you or judge you for lacking that belief. I even had one admit to me once that it’s just what he prefers to believe. These are honest statements, and respectful of the rights and beliefs of others, so while I still think its better to be grounded in a sound epistemological approach to life (you tend to make better decisions), I can get along in the sand box with people who have other ideas.

I got to know a friend of mine as just a decent human being, a talented teacher of kindergarten students, a deeply feeling person. I didn’t know or care what his beliefs are or were. As time goes on I find out more and more about him – he’s a former Reiki “master” for example. My guess is that he believes things I don’t, partly based on “experiences” but that we have more than enough in common to build trust and respect. His beliefs are incidental and not something he’s invested in to prove his “rightness”. Same with me, I don’t lead with my atheism and understand that my specific experiences have shaped me differently than others.

All that said, what most believers are hung up on in my experience is that their beliefs seem “reasonable” to them which is a way of saying that they feel “truthy”. That doesn’t make them actually reasonably defensible nor true. And that I think their beliefs are badly founded doesn’t mean personal annihilation for them or that I’m their implacable foe. This forum is just a special case where we argue these issues among ourselves but IRL I would assess your character apart from your beliefs and associate with you based on that.

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Are you referring to the collection of stories that Jeffrey Long put together?

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Jeffrey Long’s “research” on near-death experiences (NDEs) is the subject of significant scientific scepticism and criticism, it relies on anecdotal data, and lacks controlled peer-reviewed studies.

His conclusions are based on self-reported accounts gathered via surveys on his (NDERF) website, this methodology is inherently unreliable as human memory is fallible, and people often embellish stories over time.

His primary data not been through independent peer review, or published in a major scientific journal, as he has not widely shared the raw data, preventing other researchers from making an informed analysis.

So called NDEs can be explained by natural physiological and psychological processes, due to decreased oxygen or the flooding of the brain with certain chemicals when it is under extreme stress or dying.

The NDERF website’s specific focus on positive or “spiritual” NDEs risks confirmation bias, potentially skewing the data toward a consistent, positive narrative.

The debate over Jeffrey Long’s work is a clash between anecdotal evidence, and the demands of rigorous, controlled scientific methodology. His studies are highly controversial within the mainstream scientific community.

That’s just a cursory read using the guy’s name.

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That’s fine and I agree with you that people should not be imposing their beliefs on others based solely on their personal experiences and what they believe to be true.

I brought up people’s personal experiences simply to challenge the opinion that most people are going along to get along– it was not an explanation of my own evidentiary standards. Depending on who I’m talking to, I will often disregard people’s anecdotes on spirits for various reasons.

But random people’s anecdotes is very different than an organized study investigating a phenomena that’s found patterns and can lead to more discoveries– of course I will take more seriously a study that’s standardized and takes measures to test for credibility. I’m not even saying use as evidence, but simply take more seriously as far as trying to understand what’s going on.

I find it hard to believe that any reasonable person wouldn’t, but let me know what you think.

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  1. The “studies” you offered about NDE’s and OBE’s all involved anecdotal claims.

  2. Much of the “research” had been widely criticised for bias as well, as was pointed out.

  3. If anecdotal evidence is not a standard worthy of credence, then the number of those claims or how they are studied is irrelevant, as it is just a bare appeal to numbers.

See 2) above.

Wouldn’t what? Wouldn’t assume there is something to be studied beyond the anecdotal claims, and bias already offered, why would anyone assume this? If there is any study anywhere that has anything approaching objective evidence that NDE’s are anything more (at best) than the anecdotal claims of what some people claim to have imagined when undergoing cardiac arrest, then please present some with citations.

All you offered previously was the names of the people in charge of the research, it took seconds to find out that the research had been widely panned, and in one case the man heading the research had been professionally vilified for introducing bias into his results, that was the guy who claims dogs are telepathic, based in no small part on the uncontrolled claim they get excited before their owners show up at home.

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It potentially might be, but all studies are not well designed nor executed with the same rigor nor presided over by credible, serious people, nor are they all peer-reviewed. As Sheldon pointed out, this one you cited is lacking in all those departments.

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Even a poorly constructed study can provide data points for other researchers to continue the investigation, which Long’s study has done. Anecdotes cannot reveal patterns.

But I simply can’t believe that a reasonable person would put this kind of phenomenon in the same category as the tooth fairy. In other words, if I were to offer you thousands of dollars to conduct a study and you had to choose between consciousness without matter, particularly with NDE’s or the existence of the tooth fairy– maybe per your own personal beliefs they’re the same, but for all the reasons I’ve been providing, further studying NDE experiences and their patterns are the more serious option.

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That’s an argument from personal incredulity fallacy, I let it go a few times already. It’s axiomatic that each person sets their own threshold for credulity, what you deem reasonable is subjective here.

False equivalence, they are not the same, they have (at least) one similarity here, they are completely unsupported by any objectively verifiable evidence.

False dichotomy and a false equivalence, again then they are not the same, they just share one similarity, neither are supported by any objective evidence. The fact one has been “studied” and the other not is not helping your claims here, when that similarity remains the same.

NB If one claim (NDE) is studied and no supporting objective evidence found, and another (Tooth fairy) not studied, then one could argue the greater potential for future study is the latter, personally I think it’s good money after bad for the former, and will keep an open mind about the latter, while remaining dubious.

Nope, for all the objections I have raised, your bare unevidenced claim is simply subjective bias, you want something to be true, hence you are projecting bias into the claim.

The studies you offered provided no objective evidence to support OBE’s, or obviously that we can survive our own physical death, some of them were deeply flawed with the same bias you’re showing.

If you want to base assertions and beliefs on anecdotal claims, whatever the source, then you have no objective basis to reject any, other than bias of course.

Near death (cardiac arrest) is not death, no one is disputing that the brain doesn’t die immediately when the heart stops, and especially if medical science is keeping the patient alive (heart beating) with resuscitative techniques. That some people claim to have imagined some things during this is evidence that the brain can live on during cardiac arrest, it is not evidence of anything after the brain dies.

The same objections remain:

Long’s research, has methodological limitations, relies on anecdotal evidence, and there are alternative physiological explanations for the reported phenomena.

A major criticism is that nearly all NDE research, including the large database compiled by Long, is retrospective, relying on self-reported accounts often collected years after the event. Autobiographical memories can be subject to distortion, embellishment, and the influence of cultural expectations over time, making their reliability questionable for rigorous scientific analysis.

NDEs can be fully explained by known physiological and neurological processes occurring in the brain during extreme stress or trauma. These include:

  • Oxygen deprivation (hypoxia): Lack of oxygen to the brain is a common feature of life-threatening events and can induce hallucinations and altered states of consciousness.

  • Chemical releases: The brain releases endorphins and other chemicals in response to trauma, which might create sensations of peace or euphoria.

  • Brain function during crisis: Critics point out that NDEs occur when the brain is functioning abnormally, not optimally. The brain might be “filling in the gaps” of perception during a period of non-functional awareness.

  • Temporoparietal cortex stimulation: Research has shown that stimulating the temporoparietal region of the brain can artificially induce OBEs, suggesting a neurological origin for the sensation of leaving the body.

The low occurrence rate of verifiable events under controlled conditions makes it difficult to exclude subtle sensory or inferential processes, and a universally accepted standard for verifying these perceptions is lacking.

Potential for Bias: The design of some studies, including the potential for religious or philosophical bias among researchers and participants, has been noted as a potential issue. Additionally, the way questions are structured could inadvertently lead participants to report experiences consistent with the widely known “core phenomenology” of NDEs

Now this one deals directly with this tedious repetition about more study being apropos:

The core claims related to consciousness existing outside the body are often untestable and unfalsifiable, and fail a basic requirement of the scientific method.

By all means drop in here every month and repeat your dubious claim, but until you honestly address all of that, I will have to point out you’re simply offering the same bias, and not looking for honest debate.

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Each of us gets to decide what evidentiary standards we have and how credulous we wish to be on any topic.

IMO it’s fair to say that the personal subjective experiences some people have during NDEs are more real than the tooth fairy, but those experiences and the examination of those experiences have produced no more evidence for life after death than there exists for the tooth fairy. Not if you have decent evidentiary standards and a sound epistemology.

Aside from Sheldon’s objections, a truly scientific study of NDE phenomena is very expensive and time consuming and difficult to properly control. I recall a UK study that ran many years that was made and it was unable to provide conclusive evidence for all that effort. Signs were placed atop cabinets out of sight which should be readable by people having an OBE but you can’t have those in place for very long before you begin to suspect that they have become general knowledge, ruining the secret. And it takes YEARS to study significant numbers of NDEs because they happen incidental to crisis and trauma, and not often, and subjects are not, and cannot be, hooked up to all the instrumentation that would be helpful in that situation.

Another problem is that by now NDEs are well known and the well is poisoned. The commonality in the experiences is at least partly a product of expectations based on stories. Even ignoring that factor, you would expect there to BE some commonality because the same kinds of brains are having the experiences. The commonality is a necessary but insufficient ingredient of NDEs and don’t constitute any sort of proof.

I would ask yourself why you “can’t believe” people don’t find NDEs compelling. I’d suggest that it’s because you have a strong desire for them to mean something because you want there to be an afterlife. I don’t have such a desire and long since made peace with the fact of my mortality, so have no attachment to the afterlife concepts nor any yearning to validate them. I’d suggest that, on this topic, people like me are far more objective and therefore far less impressed with the campfire stories.

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The results would still be unfalsifiable in regards to the core claims here, at best you might produce anomalies that defy scientific and natural explanation, this of course is the definition of a miracle, and of an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.

However as has been pointed out, the “research” falls well short of even an appeal to mystery. What we have here is an empty bag, and all sorts of claims and expectations from people who desperately want the bag to contain magic.

The real irony is that the more they examine the bag, only to have it turn up nothing, the more obvious it becomes that the bag is empty.

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When will that be happening? Given his “research” has been widely panned by the scientific community, and the reasons offered here expansively more than once only for you to ignore them, will you now be addressing those criticisms honestly in this new thread?

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From what I’ve read, most NDE’s share common experiences. Either some out of body sensation, heightened awareness and tunnel vision, with or without some light source. There may be some biological imperative at work, but no one who’s had an actual death experience has come back to fill us in…

It presents as self evident that cultural and societal influences, typically instilled since childhood, determine the interpretation of these events…which is all we seem to be debating here.

I had to look it up as the memory seems to have had a CRS event, but it was A.J. Ayer, an atheist, who wrote about having a near death experience. He never claimed to see God, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha or Yama’s minions, but he did question his original assumption that consciousness ends with death.

I think that’s the most intriguing interpretation.

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Those who describe these experiences state that they are EXTREMELY compelling to them personally, to the point of being life-changing. That they can be at least as real as everyday experience, if not more so. I take those statements at face value as statements of personal subjective experience. It would ordinarily take something that compelling for an atheist to question (but not necessarily change) his original assumption that consciousness ends with death.

But they remain personal subjective experiences, which by their inherent nature are of no use to people who haven’t had that experience, which is to say, anyone but the experiencer. They are not probative to the question of an afterlife, therefore, for me.

I can say, though, that I have had a couple of experiences that I can’t definitively explain and that were somewhat impressive and I would like to think that if I had an NDE my reaction to it would be similar to those: interesting, but no conclusions to draw and nothing objective to hang my hat on such that I would change my basic position. Also, over against those experiences are a lifetime of more mundane but nevertheless consistent experiences and observed data pointing in the other direction.

I think that one must regard a highly emotional response as a red flag. We are wired to give more weight to emotionally laced experiences as it’s a survival advantage – it is the same response we would have to, say, a predator, just more subjectively positive but just as intense. We have to remind ourselves that life isn’t just exciting or remarkable but also dull and mundane, and if you really look at the preponderance of evidence, a single emotionally charged exception is not going to move the needle, not objectively anyway.

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The objections I posted above would apply, and there are alternative explanations (listed) that can explain this as an entirely natural phenomenon.

Many likely do, but they’re quite varied across cultures, see the citation offered in response to the thread author’s claim that they were all the same.

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I feel kind of cheesed on an NDE. In 2020 I had a heart attack and nearly died. I had no revelations, insights or hallucinations. I do remember coming out of the anesthetic before they finished and casually mentioning it. I remember hearing hearing them call out for a dosage of propofal and thinking, “yeah, that should do it” before drifting off into the ozone.

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As far as I’m concerned: every experience is a near death experience, making the phrase meaningless.

consciousness without matter?!? That is bullshit; I choose the Tooth Fairy. Money shows up under pillows where teeth disappeared from time to time, so at least there is something to measure.

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