Why do people still believe in Jesus and Christianity?

Dutch Uncle said:
Agreed on atheists although, in my experience, most atheists aren't really atheists who believe "when you're dead, you're dead". They have supernatural beliefs such as life after death, reincarnation, "magick" or define god through Pantheism or Panentheism.
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Then they are not atheists, but some flavor of pagan (which is what I am as well). Mr. Owl is truly an atheist. He doesn't subscribe to the notion of a human soul, any sort of afterlife, or belief in any supernatural things at all... including ghosts, gods, or demons. (He does enjoy a good scary ghost or werewolf movie though, lol.) But little by little, his point of view of himself as a stand-alone autonomous being has changed. When we first met and went hiking, his goal was purely exercise and going as fast as he could. He never saw an owl overhead, dozing in a tree, or an unusual plant, or the tiny trail a mouse left through wet grass. Here he was in this glorious creation, but focused inwardly, and so very very alone.

But now? He spots the owl before I do. He points out the tree where deer scratch themselves, and the coarse hairs they leave behind. He rushes out when a bird smacks into a window and brings him inside to recover. He calls our fellow passengers "he" and "she" instead of "it." He catches a spider on the floor in a cup and takes her outside rather than squashing her. He's still an atheist, but now he knows the connection that we all have with all of creation. He doesn't rush anymore when hiking. I love him.

FWIW, I lean toward Panentheism and used to be a full-blown atheist until experiencing a NDE at age 16. Then I wasn't so sure. :D
PS. No, I didn't see Jesus or God or any other spiritual entity.
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Please tell me about that, if you're okay with it.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
Then they are not atheists, but some flavor of pagan (which is what I am as well). Mr. Owl is truly an atheist. He doesn't subscribe to the notion of a human soul, any sort of afterlife, or belief in any supernatural things at all... including ghosts, gods, or demons. (He does enjoy a good scary ghost or werewolf movie though, lol.) But little by little, his point of view of himself as a stand-alone autonomous being has changed. When we first met and went hiking, his goal was purely exercise and going as fast as he could. He never saw an owl overhead, dozing in a tree, or an unusual plant, or the tiny trail a mouse left through wet grass. Here he was in this glorious creation, but focused inwardly, and so very very alone.

But now? He spots the owl before I do. He points out the tree where deer scratch themselves, and the coarse hairs they leave behind. He rushes out when a bird smacks into a window and brings him inside to recover. He calls our fellow passengers "he" and "she" instead of "it." He catches a spider on the floor in a cup and takes her outside rather than squashing her. He's still an atheist, but now he knows the connection that we all have with all of creation. He doesn't rush anymore when hiking. I love him.



Please tell me about that, if you're okay with it.
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Interesting revelation on Mr. Owl. Are you saying he sees a spiritual connection, something more than just atoms and cosmic rays?

The short story is I was in a serious accident involving my head. My friend thought I was dead and was screaming for help. I was in another place, very peaceful and completely comfortable. There was a group of people having fun about a mile away and I wanted to join them but a voice behind me said "You have to go back". I didn't have a choice in the matter. I had partial amnesia for a few days but the "vision" was very vivid in my mind. At that point I began a journey to replicate the experience. In college I did a lot of alternative states of consciousness research and experimentation. It's the main reason I studied behavioral psychology. I've been knocked out since too. None of those experiences ever came even close to the original experience.

I don't know what it was. Maybe it was just having my head slammed against a hard object, but it was as real as real life to me. Not a dream, hallucination or anything else.
 
Arks&sparka said:
What's funny is they keep talking about science and I don't think any of these people are scientists. My brother was a chemist and he worked in a lab with other scientists some of his colleagues were Hindu or Buddhist but I don't think you ever had one that was atheist.
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You are right. Neither seem to know anything about science. I have met some atheist scientists in my travels, but they are rather rare. I have also met scientists from the Church of No God. They are more common, but they also tend to make lousy scientists, since they are so caught up in their fundamentalism.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
do you agree that the motion of planets is capable of measure by any scientist who chooses and has access to the tools necessary to conduct the test?.......scientific experimentation.....

now, what scientific test that can experiment on anything which is beyond our universe......
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There is no such thing as 'scientific experimentation'. Science is not an experiment. It is a set of falsifiable theories.
Kepler's laws are falsifiable. They are testable. So far they have not yet been falsified.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Interesting revelation on Mr. Owl. Are you saying he sees a spiritual connection, something more than just atoms and cosmic rays?
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No, I don't think he has changed on that. What has changed is he is more in this world now, and is part of it, rather than a consciousness trapped in a shell. I would be most satisfied if, instead of religions that involve going inside buildings and singing to invisible beings, we could all find our place in the web of life on this planet, and truly know how connected we all are. Maybe we would take better care of our home and our fellow passengers.

The short story is I was in a serious accident involving my head. My friend thought I was dead and was screaming for help. I was in another place, very peaceful and completely comfortable. There was a group of people having fun about a mile away and I wanted to join them but a voice behind me said "You have to go back". I didn't have a choice in the matter. I had partial amnesia for a few days but the "vision" was very vivid in my mind. At that point I began a journey to replicate the experience. In college I did a lot of alternative states of consciousness research and experimentation. It's the main reason I studied behavioral psychology. I've been knocked out since too. None of those experiences ever came even close to the original experience.

I don't know what it was. Maybe it was just having my head slammed against a hard object, but it was as real as real life to me. Not a dream, hallucination or anything else.
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I've read attempts to explain the NDE experiences as anoxia (similar to what pilots experience under intense g forces), psychological trauma (the mind is attempting to soothe the terror of impending death), the result of drugs administered during a code, etc.

None of these explain your experience, nor do they explain away the experiences of thousands of others who have had a NDE. I've known three ppl in my own life who have had a NDE and what they described was very similar to yours. No matter whether there was the classic tunnel with a light at the end, visions of family members who had passed away, or a being identified as an angel or Jesus or a god -- every single one relates that same feeling of peace and comfort. One person was a work friend. She "died" on the delivery table during the birth of her first child; she had pre-eclampsia. She left her body, floated to the ceiling, remembered the bugs in the huge overhead light, then drifted down the halls of the hospital and saw ppl in their rooms. (Later when she met them in meatspace, she recognized their faces and even their names.) Eventually she entered the classic tunnel, and met a being made of pure light, love, warmth, comfort. The being told her that she had to return. She recalled being very upset by that and begged to stay. She asked "what is the meaning of life, what is all this about?" and the being showed her everything, in a split second, all the knowledge that exists. But all she could recall of that glorious experience afterwards was "Everything is a circle, everything is over and over again." She took that to mean that our bodies and our souls are recycled, and that it meant reincarnation. She was raised by a devout Southern Baptist church, and found it impossible to attend -- or believe -- anymore after that. It took her several years to even tell her husband what had happened. She was sure that ppl would think she was crazy.

What did your experimentations and research and studies show you, anything enlightening?
 
PostmodernProphet said:
in your definition of the science of mathematics, does "some of" equal "majority"........
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Science is not mathematics. Science is a set of falsifiable theories. It is an open functional system. By itself it can only describe, not predict.
Mathematics is not science. Mathematics is a closed functional system based upon founding rules, called axioms. By itself it is capable of the formal proof and the power of prediction.

A theory of science must be transcribed from it's theory into a closed system to gain the power of prediction. The resulting equation is called a 'law'. If a theory is falsified, it's 'law' goes with it.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
No, I don't think he has changed on that. What has changed is he is more in this world now, and is part of it, rather than a consciousness trapped in a shell. I would be most satisfied if, instead of religions that involve going inside buildings and singing to invisible beings, we could all find our place in the web of life on this planet, and truly know how connected we all are. Maybe we would take better care of our home and our fellow passengers.



I've read attempts to explain the NDE experiences as anoxia (similar to what pilots experience under intense g forces), psychological trauma (the mind is attempting to soothe the terror of impending death), the result of drugs administered during a code, etc.

None of these explain your experience, nor do they explain away the experiences of thousands of others who have had a NDE. I've known three ppl in my own life who have had a NDE and what they described was very similar to yours. No matter whether there was the classic tunnel with a light at the end, visions of family members who had passed away, or a being identified as an angel or Jesus or a god -- every single one relates that same feeling of peace and comfort. One person was a work friend. She "died" on the delivery table during the birth of her first child; she had pre-eclampsia. She left her body, floated to the ceiling, remembered the bugs in the huge overhead light, then drifted down the halls of the hospital and saw ppl in their rooms. (Later when she met them in meatspace, she recognized their faces and even their names.) Eventually she entered the classic tunnel, and met a being made of pure light, love, warmth, comfort. The being told her that she had to return. She recalled being very upset by that and begged to stay. She asked "what is the meaning of life, what is all this about?" and the being showed her everything, in a split second, all the knowledge that exists. But all she could recall of that glorious experience afterwards was "Everything is a circle, everything is over and over again." She took that to mean that our bodies and our souls are recycled, and that it meant reincarnation. She was raised by a devout Southern Baptist church, and found it impossible to attend -- or believe -- anymore after that. It took her several years to even tell her husband what had happened. She was sure that ppl would think she was crazy.

What did your experimentations and research and studies show you, anything enlightening?
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Sounds pretty spiritual to me. :D

The peace and comfort was very impressive. Complete bliss...and disappointment that I had to leave.

Believe me, I studied everything known on the subject including Fourth Force psychology, which was 90% bullshit due to the paranormal crap.

Regarding research: no findings. Sometimes negative results can be illuminating. There's zero evidence of ghosts, goblins, angels, gods, devil or anything else that's supernatural just as there's zero evidence on the cause of the Big Bang, alternate universes or anything beyond the Natural Universe....a universe that is projected to end in the Big Chill of entropy death.

So why believe something that can't be proved? One analogy is being stranded on a desert isle and raising a family with Mary Ann (yes, Mary Ann over Ginger!) I could tell the kids stories about radio waves but without a radio, they won't have proof radio waves exist. We certainly wouldn't be making one out of coconuts. :)

The point being is that things can exist but they are beyond our perception. Quantum physics might be able to build a "radio" one day that allows us to perceive other planes of existence. Regardless, I'm convinced there's more to existence than what we can only see in front of our noses.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
if it is granted for work which is not science, obviously.......it wasn't a first, of course......Obama was given one for Peace and he did nothing for peace.......
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Correct. The Nobel Peace prize is an award given each year as part of the series of Nobel prizes. The Peace prize has nothing to do with science. The recipient of the Nobel prize is chosen arbitrarily by the Nobel foundation, created to honor the work of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and a new and 'safer' method to manufacture nitroglycerine. After losing his brother to an explosion at the factory, Alfred created the foundation to honor the work of those contributing to science and other fields (including the peace prize). His ambition was to create the ultimate weapon, powerful enough to end all wars. He failed. If anything that honor more properly belongs with Oppenheimer. His weapon was used only twice in warfare. Terrifying as that weapon is, it still did not end all war.

The Nobel foundation has become quite political over the years. Often the prizes are given out for political reasons rather then their intended reason. It has become more like Time Magazine's Picture of the Year award.
 
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