Atheists - A Question...

[nPeace]

There could be any number of reasons why something like this could happen. I've had conditions where pain can flare up and then subside, that doesn't mean the underlying condition has cured itself. I'd stay and get the doctor to check. After all, if it IS the spiritual side of things and that it was a miracle, then it won't cause me any harm to get it checked by a doctor as well.

Everyone has had that experience.
31 people at the same time... in the same room, is not your normal everyday experience.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Everyone has had that experience.
31 people at the same time... in the same room, is not your normal everyday experience.

Then find that in the everyday world. Your example is not a fact.

 

[nPeace]

I'd assume there is a scientific explanation rather than a supernatural one.
However I'd also suspect I may never find out what that explanation is and so not worry about it.

Eventually, it might be explained by science. Or not, to me personally.

However, one could choose to believe whatever supernatural causative process they can creatively imagine. Nothing to stop anyone in the room or hearing about it believing anything they wish.

Some people need to believe they have the correct answer even if it is not. To them, nothing is more abhorrent than ignorance.

As an atheist, it means I am willing to accept my own ignorance.

Yes. You are also willing to believe whatever process scientists can creatively imagine.

 

[nPeace]

I don't go to doctors for stomach aches. Why is a healer helping stomach aches and not at cancer wards? For Christ's sake prioritize!!

Say what??? I mentioned those as examples. Sheesh.
One has better not use an example around these parts.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There is no TV. No song....

So, unlike an actual real-life waiting room, this waiting room exists in a special universe where absolutely nothing happens except what you explicitly say happens?

This seems like a detail you should have mentioned in the OP.

 

[F1fan]

I have read many, many scientific theories for NDEs. They all come from those without the experience.

Why would having a NDE make a difference? The scientists examining NDE are experts in how brains work, so is that insufficient for you?

I have no doubt that the experience and subsequent experiences I have had are totally real. But I don't want to argue about them with those who never had such an experience.

Sure, experiences are real. But how lay people interpret such exepriences are usually not well informed. This is why we defer to experts in science and not those who think they had a certain experience.

There is plenty evidence to show this for those who wish to know.

I susepct you're referring to the testimonies of those who have experienced a NDE and not experts who explain what their brains are doing under stress.

 

[nPeace]

Absolutely no correlation between the man walking in the room and suddenly leaving, and the invalid's momentarily lack of pain.
Your scenario was much too ambiguous - just come out and ask the question: if you witnessed a miracle, would you rethink your perspective on the existence of the metaphysical and spiritual realm.

Thank you.
I tend to use examples or scenarios to help persons better visualize.
Trust me when I say, it's necessary for some audiences.

 

[SkepticThinker]

For all I know I am on one of those T.V. prank show.

But if this experience is repeatable, yes I would reconsider my beliefs about the world. I am open to change, if the evidence warrants it.

As you state the situation, I probably would still go see the doctor. Pain can be intermittent. And in some cases the sudden absence of pain can be very serious. It could indicate possible nerve damage.

Well, yeah. I mean, I've actually been in this scenario, minus the guy staring at everyone. Or maybe there was a guy and I just didn't notice him there.

I had what was definitely a UTI. I was in agony all night long with it. I went to the emergency clinic first thing in the morning. I sat in the waiting room for 45 minutes in pure agony. By the time it came for me to see the doctor, the pain had subsided. Just like that. But I went for testing anyway, and turns out, I still had the UTI and it had begun moving into one of my kidneys. If I had gone home thinking I was cured, I would have been in a world of trouble.

People come and go in waiting rooms all the time around here. Some get up to stretch their legs, or go for a smoke, or wait in their cars, or whatever. I wouldn't find that very strange either, I don't think.

 

[nPeace]

Right, because in your scenario God sends a healer to cure people he made sick. Right? God screwed up and made people sick, and now to prove He exists he cures a few of them. So why does God create kids with cancers? If God can send healers why create these kids with death sentences?


All things can be tested because there are still strange new bacterias or illnesses that tests can't detect yet. The question is why God creates all these mystery diseases?


If only prayer worked. It doesn't. So we turn to the most superior option: medicine.

God did not create diseases. Who fooled you with that lie?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I spoke to a cousin I hadn't spoken to lately. She recently had a heart attack, and was 'gone' for about 3 minutes in the ambulance. They did surgery same day. She laughed when I asked about an NDE, and said everyone asked her about seeing lights, or all that, because she had nothing at all. "I can't remember," was all she had.

My grandfather told me the exact same thing after his heart stopped for couple of minutes on the operating table. He said he saw nothing and it was basically just like he was sleeping.

 

[Lekatt]

Think about it.

Should universities that offer a psychiatric education have a requirement that only students that suffered from psychosis should be allowed to enroll?

I am sorry, but I don't get the logic in this post either.

 

[nPeace]

Eh. Not nothing. I can think of several scenarios that would change my mind, or at least make me think hard and open myself up to the possibility of changing my mind.

For example, in a similar scenario to the one you posed... Someone waltzes into the hospital, finds someone who is missing an arm, and says "here's your arm back". If the entire arm grow back in front of my eyes, I'd probably investigate the situation for tricks, and then go home and stare out of a window into the rain while drinking some tea and wondering what the hell I just witnessed. But that wouldn't say anything about WHAT supernatural possibilities I might be convinced of.

If I was sane and not intoxicated, and a god appeared in front of my eyes and did some crazy, normally impossible tricks like manifesting a full-grown dragon into the world, then yeah. I'd be pretty damn convinced.

The problem is that you are providing us with hypotheticals that are aren't clearly supernatural. And for what reason? Even the situation you've described/pulled from another source is attempting to sound realistic, when realistic shouldn't be the point, considering it's still fiction.

If you want to ask atheists what will convince us, why stop at ambiguous hospital scenarios when you could have dragons? Dragons are cooler

Cool.
Why would you attribute the miracle to some supernatural being rather than a Type 3 advance civilization some billion light years away on Planet X, who are using their tech?

 

[F1fan]

Say what??? I mentioned those as examples. Sheesh.
One has better not use an example around these parts.

I'm not sure why you mentioned stomach aches at all. If you want a scenario where a supernatural agent cures people miraculously head straight for the cancer wards FIRST. You have moms and kids in there fighting for their lives, exactly as God created them.

This begs the question: if your scenario is a supernatural agent curing diseases, and this would be proof of a supernatural, and by extension your God, WHY doesn't your God do this?

WHY did your God create humans with diseases and defects in the first place?

To my mind you asking this question demostrates that we live in a Godless universe where nature has no moral concern for any of us at any stage in life. You recognize disease is bad and should be fixed, yet you believe in a God that not only does nothing, but has created a world where there is diseases and defects that affect children as well as adults.

To my mind I would be impressed if human children had no defects or diseases until they reach maturity, and then started having normal health problems. That would suggest to me that there is some benevolent force giving babies and children a good life through innocence. Nope. Even babies face the harsh and natural lottery of life. Some kids deal with cancer. Some die. There is no magic, and no God coming forward with a last minute miracle.

 

[nPeace]

Let's say it thus: no single event would convince me.

I have a 60 year experience streak of no magic at all. I have witnessed numerous events that seemed strange at first and were explained naturally later. I have performed street magic myself. I know about studies where multiple actors were used to test a single persons reaction.

Have you watched the video @fantome profane posted?

Humans are pattern seekers. You may see a pattern in the stranger arriving and the people leaving. I see the big picture of strange events occurring and being explained naturally or, if they are not easily explained, never repeating.

How about a crushed hand being restored instantly, and there is no advanced medical explanation? Would that convince you of a supernatural explanation?

 

[F1fan]

Cool.
Why would you attribute the miracle to some supernatural being rather than a Type 3 advance civilization some billion light years away on Planet X, who are using their tech?

Because you were indoctrinated to believe in a God by your social experience? And now you can't let this belief go.

 

[F1fan]

God did not create diseases. Who fooled you with that lie?

Oh, so your religion includes multiple creators, not just one God? How many other creators do you believe exists, and which one created diseases since it wasn't the main God you believe in?

Or if you believe in only one God, and it is the only creator, how did diseases come about in what the Allmighty God made? Did this God screw up?

You tell us where disease came from if you believe there is only one God, and it is in charge of everything.

 

[Lekatt]

Why would having a NDE make a difference? The scientists examining NDE are experts in how brains work, so is that insufficient for you?


Sure, experiences are real. But how lay people interpret such exepriences are usually not well informed. This is why we defer to experts in science and not those who think they had a certain experience.


I susepct you're referring to the testimonies of those who have experienced a NDE and not experts who explain what their brains are doing under stress.

Evidence comes mainly from those who are present while someone else has the experience.

A typical one is where a patient is being operated upon and his heart stops. Eleven seconds after that the brain stops. The patient is clinically dead.

The operating staff rush into action trying the bring the person back. During the rush things happen like a chair may be knocked over or a doctor may say a string of cursing. So then after several minutes the patient is revived. The patient tells the doctor he was out of body watching them work on his body. The patient then tells about seeing the chair knocked over and what the doctor said.

There are numerous cases of this happening.

 

[LuisDantas]

Atheists... If this happened to you, would this convince you that the spiritual side of life is a reality - that miracles and the supernatural are real?

Probably not. I don't think that it is morally advisable to believe in miracles.

Nor do I have any particular problem with acknowledgments that there are events that I can't explain. That does not make them supernatural, just unexplained.

Or would you attribute it to a 'natural' phenomenon - perhaps associated with some scientific experiment or mind altering technology?

Yeah, that sounds much more likely, if I feel the need to have some sort of answer at all.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Atheists... If this happened to you, would this convince you that the spiritual side of life is a reality - that miracles and the supernatural are real? Or would you attribute it to a 'natural' phenomenon - perhaps associated with some scientific experiment or mind altering technology?

Your scenario is easily explained and understood naturalistically.

Also, your definition of spiritual is not mine. It seems to involve spirits and the supernatural. I consider that a misunderstanding of the term and of reality. I have a spiritual reality without reference to spirits. It's a natural psychological response to some experiences that manifests as a thrilling sense of connection, and can occur while stargazing, hearing rapturous music, falling in love, laughing, gardening, or admiring the family pet. For me, the mistake is to begin to invoke and attach spirits and otherworldly entities and realms to the experience.

As far as we know, all phenomena are natural phenomena, natural here being the opposite of supernatural rather than of artificial. Nothing can manifest in nature but more of nature. All of reality is nature, and nature is all of reality.

If what is called a miracle occurred, there would be no reason to consider it due to a suspension of the laws of nature. If massive object began floating for no apparent reason, for example, it wouldn't be a suspension of the rules of nature, but an unfamiliar manifestation of them.

This is naturalism, also called physicalism, which is anathema to many theists, who scoffingly call it scientism or materialism. There is no evidence that it is not correct, and adding supernaturalism doesn't add any explanatory or predictive power to any observation or scientific theory. No observed phenomenon requires supernaturalism just as none require gods.

 

[F1fan]

Evidence comes mainly from those who are present while someone else has the experience.

A typical one is where a patient is being operated upon and his heart stops. Eleven seconds after that the brain stops. The patient is clinically dead.

Clinical death only means the body has shut down. This differs from brain death. the brain is still alive and functioning through clinical death and can be revived. The NDEs are expained as brain trauma of oxygen debt. Brains often hallucinate when in glucose and oxygen debt. Athletes have subtle forms of this.

The operating staff rush into action trying the bring the person back. During the rush things happen like a chair may be knocked over or a doctor may say a string of cursing. So then after several minutes the patient is revived. The patient tells the doctor he was out of body watching them work on his body. The patient then tells about seeing the chair knocked over and what the doctor said.

There are numerous cases of this happening.

There is no conclusive evidence. The brains still work and can even sense a chair being knocked over. Nothing explains the claim that a person has sensory ability outside of their bodies. The most likely explanation is that the patients hear things and piece together details they didn't see.