From: michalek@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Libor Michalek)
Subject: Re: Help
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 08:19:04 GMT


Mic.Oettinger@launchpad.unc.edu (Mic Oettinger) writes:
>be what you would call proof unless God shows himself to each and every
>atheist in this world. Every atheist I have ever encountered sticks to the
>tiring line, "If I didn't witness it, I don't believe it." First of all let

Personally I still would not believe in a God if this happened to me. I 
Have seen alot of things in my days that i do not believe really happened. 
For instance 1) Things I see when doing LSD 2) things I see when I've
been awake for 48+ hours 3) somethings that I see out of the corner of my 
eye etc... In general there are no guide lines for things that you see 
being real or your imagination. Any one who has ever had a conversation 
with someone who society considers insane would Know this. The only thing
I trust is my mind if what I see challenges what I believe I either
reevaluate or do not believe what I see. My atheism Is my strongest
belief there for my eyes are no ground to reavaluate this belief

>As a second point, I'd like to assert that no human can even hope to talk
>intellectually about the reality that exists beyond human scope. You have
>no idea whatsoever whether unicorns really do exist or not because you have
>not had the opportunity to visit any other planets in any other solar
>system. So how can you be so bold to discount the existence of anything?

This goes all the way back to "If a tree falls and no one hears it did it
really fall?". If you believe that knoledge and truth are absolute then
your statment is correct, otherwise it is not. I think talking about
things that no one has witnesed is along the lines of talking about whether
Hitler was good or bad (it depends who you ask Jew or Nazi). For you to
say he is wrong because my beliefs dictate that what he says is wrong is
very narrow minded and is where alot of troubles occur in our (and most)
societies.                           

>Thirdly, and I ask this out of sheer confusion myself (and I'd really like
>true opinions on what you make of this), I am aware that your wonderful
>scientists have now discovered a way to tap the area of the brain that
>triggers out-of-body experiences, and that they now in fact have a laboratory
>where one (with much money to blow) can experience an OOB. Given that
>after coming back from one of these the person can relay information which
>occured in other rooms/states/countries/etc while they were 'gone', what
>do you make of this obvious proof that the human body entails more than
>its physical being? How would you explain this, and does this not provide
>a damn good proof that when we die we are only leaving our physical body?

Did you not just say that we should question scientific facts for there
validity? I have done some reading and have read in a few sources that 
when a person dies the vision centers of the brain become very active
producing a" light at the end of the tunnel" effect (this has been shown
threw CAT scans). Oh ya the above effects you can get by taking the appropriate
narcotics( not that you should unless you want to). Also alot of asian
religions can produce OOB experiences threw meditation its less dangerous
and costs alot less.

Libor Michalek


 ( these views are not of the university, my employer, or the majority
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