Alex Tsakiris and Tom Jump Debate Near Death Experience Sceicne |408|

Alex

Administrator
Alex Tsakiris (Skeptiko) vs TJump, are NDE's reason to believe in non-physical minds?
my debate with TJump:
I’m TJump and I’m an atheist by which I mean I believe there are no reasons to believe in the existence of a God. If you like my original arguments you can help me to make them more popular by subscribing or donating to my Patreon so in future i can publish my ideas.

====
This was fun... a bit of a throwback regarding Tom's arguments against NDE science. What really blew me away were the comments on YouTube... some of these skeptics can be a weird bunch :)
====
 
Last edited:
Summary of debate:
Your position:

What we know about the brain = 99% (some high percentage)
So it would be unreasonable to believe that conscious is in that last 1% if it can be shown it’s not in the 99

My position:
What we know about the brain = 1% (some low percentage)
So it would be reasonable to believe that consciousness is in that 99% we know nothing about because it would be unreasonable to rule it out if we know so little
I would apply this 1% to everything in science, we only know 1 millionth of one percent of anything.

Both of us agree:
Consciousness is not in the known percentage, the question is whether or not it is reasonable to believe it’s in the unknown percentage

Your Position:
You said they believe the experts you have talked with have been very careful in their research and “didn’t miss anything”, so it is unreasonable.

My position:
They definitely missed something (they missed most things) because we know very very little about the brain so they couldn’t possibly have not missed something because nothing in science allows us to know that much about the brain.

“We know very little about the brain.” – Neurobiologist Lu Chen, PhD
“We know very little about how the brain works … We are still in need of an understanding of the fundaments”(2016) – Neuroscientist and Nobel Laureate Tom Südhof, MD, PhD
“There's a perception that we actually know a lot about how the brain works and that we know a lot about the many diseases that are really becoming an enormous burden on our population such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's but also schizophrenia and other types of diseases that affect the brain we don't actually know a lot at all we know very very little” – Tom Südhof


If I said, NDE’s were caused by unknown natural processes I would need to answer the questions you asked in the beginning:

When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

If the experts argue NDE’s are caused by a non-physical consciousness, they need to answer the question you asked in the beginning:

When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

None of the studies answer these questions for either case, so just like it’s unreasonable to conclude is an unknown natural process, it’s also unreasonable to conclude it’s a non-physical thing. Both are unsupported for the exact same reasons which is why I reject their conclusion for the same reason you reject mine.

This would lead into the argument we didn’t get a chance to talk about, which is the actual experiences in the NDE’s and seeing things from a distance and whether or not that is compatible with natural explanations. I would say they are compatible with natural explanations and would not be evidence of non-physical consciousness. Another topic for later…
 
They are not equal and opposite propositions. One is deductive and accountable in its inference and the other is only mildly inductive and unaccountable in its inference.

We have to be careful of Pseudo-Theory here. And as well, understand the difference between hypothesis which propositions a modus absens (something is non-extant), versus one which propositions a modus praesens (something is). Just expressing a modus absens denial in the form of a congruent counter-positive to a proposition is not automatically a correct framing. Such may not even constitute a hypothesis at all.

If the counter-positive bears no real structure of hypothesis and accountability - then it is actually a denial, simply posed in the form of a counter-positive. Such is the nature of pseudo-theory. The proposition that the mind is only the sum of its neural capacity and feedback dynamics, is pseudo-theory. It wallows in the luxury of unaccountability. It is the Kim Jong Un of mind theory. A tyrant, never having to produce anything nor be held to real scientific account. It can answer all four questions you posed, effortlessly so - and right now. It was able to answer these (and all) questions from the very first day the idea was proposed - but only from an ad hoc fallacious standpoint. This is not the same notion as an idea's possessing explanatory power.

The contention that NDE's are extra-physical is a testable, incremental, hypothesis = modus praesens. It places its set of incremental contentions at risk. By prosecuting that theory, we become more informed, deductively. By insisting on a non-testable modus absens pseudo-theory which does not bear any incremental accountability, we do not get any smarter - only inductively confirm what we already 'knew'. The idea that NDE's are 'not extra-physical' - given what little we know of the domain, is NOT a hypothesis - rather the null - and if 'believed' is only an opinion. In other words, the less we know, the stronger its gets as an idea. That is why you do not find its proponents too eager to test anything.

This does not mean that it is wrong, just that it is not really a hypothesis; and as an idea, is less scientific than we spin it to be. We can dress it up in fMRI color scans and neuro-speak, but it still remains only shallow inductive posturing with sciencey accoutrements.

Pseudo-Theory

1. Can be developed in full essence before any investigation even begins.​
2. Never improves in its depth, description nor falsifiable or inductive strength despite ongoing research and increases in observational data.​
3. Possesses no real method of falsification nor distinguishing predictive measure which is placed at risk, nor does it offer any other means of being held to account or measure..​
4. Employs non-Wittgenstein equivocal/colloquial terminology or underlying premises (possibly pseudo-theory itself) where the risk of conjecture is not acknowledged.​
5. Is employed primarily as a symbolic or fiat excuse to dismiss disliked or competing explanations. Is adorned with sciencey-like accoutrements.​
6. Filters out by method during the hypothesis formulation stages, high probative value testing, in favor of perceived high reliability confirmation or authorized information only (cherry sorting).​
7. Can quickly (but not elegantly) explain a multiplicity of observations or even every non-resolved question (Explanitude).​
8. Is artificially installed as the null hypothesis from the very start. Falsification is completed and then forgotten, and the theory self-revives - the Theory from the Black Lagoon. It never goes away, even after being falsified, just crawls back out of the mud and is suddenly back in the discussion forefront.​
9. Attains its strength through becoming a Verdrängung Mechanism. Is promoted through pluralistic ignorance and Lindy Effect or social intimidation.​
10. Considers the absence of observation or a data collection/detection failure as suitable to stand in as ‘evidence’ (argument from ignorance).​
11. Pseudo-theory can be identified in that, as less information is held or information is screened out (cherry sorted), pseudo-theory tends to appear to grow more plausible and more pervasively explanatory, and is able to be produced with less effort (armchair debunking for instance). Whereas valid theory and hypothesis tend to strengthen with research effort and an increase in information.​
12. Is panductive – an invalid form of inference which is spun in the form of pseudo-deductive study. Inference which seeks to falsify in one felled swoop ‘everything but what my club believes’ as constituting one group of bad people, who all believe the same wrong and correlated things – this is the warning flag of panductive pseudo-theory. No follow up series studies nor replication methodology can be derived from this type of ‘study’, which in essence serves to make it pseudo-science. This is a common ‘study’ format which is conducted by social skeptics masquerading as scientists, to pan people and subjects they dislike.​
 
Last edited:
They are not equal and opposite propositions... Pseudo-Theory here.
true... and worse.... what we have is "tom's theory." the study of near-death experience is 25 years on has attracted the interest of hundreds highly qualified researchers at some of the top universities in the world. these researchers include world renowned experts in their fields with a proven history of publishing in some of the best peer-reviewed journals. it's just not reasonable to compare any of this research with something somebody just thought up on their own.

I mean, it's not like he's pointing to a body of published research that supports his position... he's just saying "I think..." as I pointed out in the show, the closest research there is that supports his position is the university of michigan study on rats and brain bursts after death. the fact that he wasn't aware of this research reinforces the point that this is just something he cooked up on his own.

to be honest, I thought Tjump had something more when I agreed to the interview, but it was still fun and I'm glad I did it.
 
Alex your position is self defeating...

as YOU said...
If I said, NDE’s were caused by unknown natural processes I would need to answer the questions you asked in the beginning:
When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

the SAME standard applies to experts... (or you have a double standard)
If the experts argue NDE’s are caused by a non-physical consciousness, they need to answer the question you asked in the beginning:
When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

None of the studies answer these questions for either case, so just like it’s unreasonable to conclude is an unknown natural process, it’s also unreasonable to conclude it’s a non-physical thing. Both are unsupported for the exact same reasons which is why I reject their conclusion for the same reason you reject mine.

the studies you cite and standards you provided refute your own position.

My "pseudo theory" was meant to get you to argue exactly what you did "you need to answer these questions..." to show you the contradiction in your own standards... it wasn't meant to be a genuine scientific alternative so thinking i need to cite peer reviewed research means you missed the point completely.
 
Last edited:
One tiny and perhaps inconsequential input from me; around the 23.44 mark TJump is working on explaining NDEs as being the result of subconscious activities. Alex handles that very well in his response.

My little addition is that when people hit that point where Dr. Parnia would say that they have died, the known subconscious processes, those as primitive as the autonomic nervous system, cease functioning. This is evidenced by the patient voiding bodily fluids among other unpleasant occurrences.

Is it reasonable to assume that there is a subconscious process more basic than the autonomic system that would support elaborate NDE experiences and the memory of them?

That seems "incredibly unlikely"

Positing some other, unknown to date, subconscious - yet materialistic - is nothing more than an article of faith, as Alex says....and a desperate one at that.
 
Last edited:
One tiny and perhaps inconsequential input from me; around the 23.44 mark TJump is working on explaining NDEs as being the result of subconscious activities. Alex handles that very well in his response.

My little addition is that when people hit that point where Dr. Parnia would say that they have died, the known subconscious processes, those as primitive as the autonomic nervous system, cease functioning. This is evidenced by the patient voiding bodily fluids among other unpleasant occurrences.

Positing some other, unknown to date, subconscious - yet materialistic - is nothing more than an article of faith, as Alex says.
agreed... there's actually a really interesting conversation we could have about whether conscience and subconscious is a meaningful distinction, but that's way beyond the scope of this dialogue :)
 
Alex your position is self defeating...

as YOU said...
If I said, NDE’s were caused by unknown natural processes I would need to answer the questions you asked in the beginning:
When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

the SAME standard applies to experts... (or you have a double standard)
If the experts argue NDE’s are caused by a non-physical consciousness, they need to answer the question you asked in the beginning:
When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

None of the studies answer these questions for either case, so just like it’s unreasonable to conclude is an unknown natural process, it’s also unreasonable to conclude it’s a non-physical thing. Both are unsupported for the exact same reasons which is why I reject their conclusion for the same reason you reject mine.

the studies you cite and standards you provided refute your own position.

My "pseudo theory" was meant to get you to argue exactly what you did "you need to answer these questions..." to show you the contradiction in your own standards... it wasn't meant to be a genuine scientific alternative so thinking i need to cite peer reviewed research means you missed the point completely.
I thought you said you were ok with the published research on near-death experience science... didn't you say it looks solid?
 
Alex your position is self defeating...

When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

None of the studies answer these questions for either case, so just like it’s unreasonable to conclude is an unknown natural process, it’s also unreasonable to conclude it’s a non-physical thing. Both are unsupported for the exact same reasons which is why I reject their conclusion for the same reason you reject mine.

Tom, you are employing the questions in the wrong context versus how Alex posed them. You are shifting his question context from that of existential counter-argument and into a scientific context. It is a little bit of sleight-of-hand. Alex posed these inside the context of challenging those who say that they have FINISHED THE SCIENCE AND FOUND THAT MONISM IS CONSENSUS. He is asking in essence - OK, if you have completed the science, then answer the end questions of this process then, if you have indeed finished the science sufficient to make this extraordinary final claim.... those questions that the material monist who insists that the science is over, should be able to answer.

He is not contending that he should have to answer them as well - because what he is citing as his process involves other questions. Method questions, not existential ones.

"I own a Lamborghini"​
"OK, show me the title, the engine block under its glass hood, the paint color and that you can do 200 mph." These are questions which qualify a final claim to owning a Lambo. But that does not mean that Alex is contending 'I own a Lamborghini too'. So, to throw those same questions back at him, is ignoratio elenchi.​

The science is not over, it has just started. This was Alex's very point. He is contending that the material monist should be asking actual real scientific questions - call me crazy - say before tendering a conclusion?? Possibly?

The key is, these are not the correct questions to ask under the start of the scientific method. No, it is not correct to derive an equality of inference under these four final-consensus questions. These questions are orphan questions in that they fail to follow a critical path of incremental risk and logical calculus.


The non-religious questions one must ask, which stand under a process of incremental accountability and consilience (not pretend consensus) are...

1. Does observation by an intelligent observer, affect the nature of our physical reality?​
2. Does information emerge or can it be consumed as a part of the froth structure of M-Theory?​
3. Do experiments along the lines of 1 and 2 provide consilience for the idea that information and intelligence are substrate and not captive?​
4. Can we demonstrate that information survives inside a conscious entity which was dead at the time which it obtain the information?​
5. Can we demonstrate an intelligence which exists independent of its former housing or any monist housing?​

This is what we are underway on inside hypothesis based science. These questions are deductive in nature (ethical). This is what I would ask, as a lab head.

The problem Alex has cited is that material monists are not asking nor addressing these critical path questions at all. Simply showing that pig neurons fire, when stimulated with electricity, four hours after the pig has died - is Nelsonian in its inference. It is AVOIDING THE SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS by examining only those things which will mildly suggest what my religion has dictated I believe - and wearing a lab coat while I do it.
 
Last edited:
Question for TJump - if science says "nothing is impossible" and if we don't understand much of anything and if just because we can't it measure it doesn't mean it isn't real (all positions you stated), then why is consciousness separate from the brain not a possibility?

He only ever said it was unlikely for it to be so.
 
I can't be bothered engaging with TJump's tired and long since discredited POV. I find it hard to be live that there are people who still say they are an atheist and expect to be taken seriously by people who think deeply on this theme.

Jeff Kripal's The Flip should be mandatory reading for all atheists. There is really no respectable place for atheism or materialism in a contemporary discussion among people who have made the effort to properly survey serious thought on the nature of our reality -m and our experience of it.

Yes, there is a diehard rump of ideologues defending their patch with the intellectual equivalent of muskets. You go play in their game or you can play with people who use a far more sophisticated arsenal of actual science, deep philosophical thought, psychology, social sciences and the wide field of humanistic inquiry.
 
I thought you said you were ok with the published research on near-death experience science... didn't you say it looks solid?

Yes i am fine with the research, nothing in the research answers any of the questions you asked... which is why the conclusion is unsupported because they are doing the exact same thing i did, coming up with an ad hoc explanation that answered nothing (mine is ad hoc physical thier's is ad hoc non-physical) neither answer any of these questions...
 
Summary of debate:
Your position:

What we know about the brain = 99% (some high percentage)
So it would be unreasonable to believe that conscious is in that last 1% if it can be shown it’s not in the 99

My position:
What we know about the brain = 1% (some low percentage)
So it would be reasonable to believe that consciousness is in that 99% we know nothing about because it would be unreasonable to rule it out if we know so little
I would apply this 1% to everything in science, we only know 1 millionth of one percent of anything.

Both of us agree:
Consciousness is not in the known percentage, the question is whether or not it is reasonable to believe it’s in the unknown percentage

Your Position:
You said they believe the experts you have talked with have been very careful in their research and “didn’t miss anything”, so it is unreasonable.

My position:
They definitely missed something (they missed most things) because we know very very little about the brain so they couldn’t possibly have not missed something because nothing in science allows us to know that much about the brain.

“We know very little about the brain.” – Neurobiologist Lu Chen, PhD
“We know very little about how the brain works … We are still in need of an understanding of the fundaments”(2016) – Neuroscientist and Nobel Laureate Tom Südhof, MD, PhD
“There's a perception that we actually know a lot about how the brain works and that we know a lot about the many diseases that are really becoming an enormous burden on our population such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's but also schizophrenia and other types of diseases that affect the brain we don't actually know a lot at all we know very very little” – Tom Südhof


If I said, NDE’s were caused by unknown natural processes I would need to answer the questions you asked in the beginning:

When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

If the experts argue NDE’s are caused by a non-physical consciousness, they need to answer the question you asked in the beginning:

When does it begin?
When does it end?
What is necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness?
Where does consciousness exist?

None of the studies answer these questions for either case, so just like it’s unreasonable to conclude is an unknown natural process, it’s also unreasonable to conclude it’s a non-physical thing. Both are unsupported for the exact same reasons which is why I reject their conclusion for the same reason you reject mine.

This would lead into the argument we didn’t get a chance to talk about, which is the actual experiences in the NDE’s and seeing things from a distance and whether or not that is compatible with natural explanations. I would say they are compatible with natural explanations and would not be evidence of non-physical consciousness. Another topic for later…

TJump, are you a total skeptic regarding psi phenomena as such? Or do you accept them, but from a matreialist and / or atheist perspective - as something that is verifiably real, but just not yet physically explained - but may still be (and likely will be) explained this way some time in the future? Such is the position of a few actual parapsychologists (not all of them are immaterialists, and many are not anatheists as well)?
 
TJump, are you a total skeptic regarding psi phenomena as such? Or do you accept them, but from a matreialist and / or atheist perspective - as something that is verifiably real, but just not yet physically explained - but may still be (and likely will be) explained this way some time in the future? Such is the position of a few actual parapsychologists (not all of them are immaterialists, and many are not anatheists as well)?

Cynic - thinks that the subject is improbable.

Skeptic - does not bear a pre-disposition, once Ockham's Razor plurality has been surpassed. Goes into the field and examines, asks new questions, tests, thinks of new ideas, unifies, is patient in NOT declaring a 'probable' final answer with only 3% of the subject domain known.
 
I can't be bothered engaging with TJump's tired and long since discredited POV. I find it hard to be live that there are people who still say they are an atheist and expect to be taken seriously by people who think deeply on this theme.
I hear you... then again, seems like we're compelled to dance around all sorts of silliness: fundy christians, fundy neoliberals, fundy muslims, fundy climate alarmists. the list is never ending... so why not give TJump and his fundy Skeptics a shot :)


Jeff Kripal's The Flip should be mandatory reading for all atheists. There is really no respectable place for atheism or materialism in a contemporary discussion among people who have made the effort to properly survey serious thought on the nature of our reality -m and our experience of it.

Yes, there is a diehard rump of ideologues defending their patch with the intellectual equivalent of muskets. You go play in their game or you can play with people who use a far more sophisticated arsenal of actual science, deep philosophical thought, psychology, social sciences and the wide field of humanistic inquiry.
ok, but I think we gotta remind ourselves that TJump is essentially mouthpiecing the position still held by science as we know it. don't get me wrong, I'm with you, the battles is over, anyone holding onto wacky materialism is going to be left behind, but I don't think we should underestimate how slow the process to be... in all the twists and turns that will happen during the change.
 
I think we gotta remind ourselves that TJump is essentially mouthpiecing the position still held by science as we know it.

Actually Alex, I am not sure that science holds this position. Fake skeptics, who pretend to represent science, sell this position falsely in the name of science. Science does not comment upon the probability of NDE validity or the reality of an afterlife. Such propositions of absence are the NULL. The null is a placeholder in science, used to adjudicate alternatives. Only the scientifically illiterate then regard the null as

1. An actual hypothesis.​
2. Something they are to believe as probable.​
When I ran our lab - we always worked with and venerated a null hypothesis of absence... no one believed the null hypothesis however..... because

The least scientific thing a researcher can do is to believe the null hypothesis.
 
Here’s an issue I have. Skeptics have no problem accenting that the NDEs which they can debunk happen. What I mean by this is that the typical “I saw a bright white light and did such and such” can be debunked by saying, “it was some sort of a hallucination.” But the trickier phenomena are just totally ignored and never seem to enter the discussion. And people who experience these phenomena (which I’ll list below) are not dealt with or are simply called liars. But these people do not seem any less credible whatsoever than the people who experience the more “mundane” NDEs. Here are some examples of what I mean.

1) Shared Death Experiences

These are experienced by people who are completely healthy who just so happen to be near somebody who is dying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BuI-DugnU&t=8s


2) The Blind seeing for the first time during NDE's, and the deaf hearing for the first time. There are several reports and testimonies of this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azIh8gsXVRg&t=84s

3) Veridical NDE's

People floating outside their bodies (often to other rooms) to report conversations and events which later check out as accurate. There are a great deal of these on record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gGqpxa32og

4) These events are life altering. People change permanently. They report a non-existence of time. Those are two (there are many more) rather bizarrely common reportedly themes of NDE's. This doesnt fit the notion that they are Hallucinations, which are disorganized and bizarre and rarely make sense, and generally have no typical after effects. In contrast, NDE's are reported as being more real and clear than everyday real life, and that they make every day existence seem like a mere dream. This is nothing like a hallucination or dream.

5) People very frequently encounter dead people during their NDE's. Notice, they're not meeting living people. Strange coincidence if its a dream that all the people they run into just so happen to be dead isn't it? And why are people hallucinating something which is like what we would think the afterlife would be? Why arent people hallucinating their 57 Chevy? Why are there profound and intelligent moral lessons which are learned? Why this undescribable state of love expressed during these experiences? Sounds a lot like what we would expect an afterlife to be based upon the religious writings of the wise man, sages, holy men, and shaman of the past.

6) There are a lot of reports of people given information about the future, which eventually came true

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EydWO5vqT80

7) Miraculous healings which people were told would occur during their NDE's, and actually occur


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPmtfW3BIGs

In the cases of the more explainable NDEs, skeptics are happy to admit that people are having these experiences, because they have a skeptical explanation or two on hand. But with regards to these other circumstances, the only real explanation for many of them is that they are essentially lying. Especially with regards to the SHARED death experience. But the problem is, these people aren’t any less credible than the other experiencers. And this holds true for all the areas im mentioning, which have been thoroughly studied and documented. But you won’t understand the true power of these testimonies until you listen to the people tell their stories on video. When hundreds upon hundreds of these stories come through through sincere and emotional people, that’s when they pure weight and power of the testimony comes through. And skeptics virtually never take the time to even listen to any of these people. The “research” is usually so shallow and involves usually no contact with experiencers whatsoever. And there’s two things that will can change you, listening to all of these people, and having the experience yourself.

Then, when you dive into the PSI research which has demonstrated through hundreds of experiments that psychic abilities seem real, and you dive into the essentially unassailable research and studies in the field of re-incarnation done on University levels, and you realize that quantum physics seems to be showing us that consciousness shapes measurement of the world, and you look at Dr Julie Bieschels work on Mediums (Triple blond studies using proxy sitters) and you combine all of this with the near consensus of all of mankind in all points of history in all parts of the world (except the modern day western world) that we are not our bodies, and the hard problem of this bizarre downright magical property of consciousness, under what ground is the a-priori explanation of NDEs that they must some hallucination? It’s an a-priori explanation to those who practice materialism.

To properly unpack this topic I think you need to consider all the research that has been done in the aforementioned topics. To me, they blatantly point in the same direction. And this isn’t even mentioning dozens of other areas of documented research such as terminal lucidity, bedside visitations etc etc etc. At some point, when can we trust our experiences and the testimony of others when it’s so incredibly obvious and overwhelming? I get it that it’s hard for people. This illusion of materialism is overwhelming due to every day experience. But this sort of intuition based on everyday experience says nothing about ultimate reality.

When you have one of these experiences, you become converted permanently. There is no believing at that point. Only a knowing. I think a lot of skeptics think that if they had one of these experiences that they would be rational enough to realize it for what they think they are, some sort of dream. And then it happens to them, then they change their tune. Happens essentially every time.

Mainstream academia buried their head in the sand with regards to the strangeness of consciousness, philosophy of quantum physics, telepathy, precognition, the placebo effect, death bed visitations, healing through prayer and intention, NDEs, mediumistic abilities, the remarkable reincarnation evidence etc, because it’s a serious challenge to their beliefs. I think current Western society tends to think of itself as advanced due to our scientific prowess and technology, whereas I think we are one of the most ignorant cultures of alltime with regards to our understanding of the nature of reality and what it is to be a conscious agent. We’ve backwards with regards to the most important questions. In the future, this era will be looked back upon and considered silly. This hardline dogmatic materialistic attitude is an absolute poison. And I wish the general public realized it for what it is, a belief system carried by many in mainstream academia. It certainly isn’t “the conclusion of science”, as we are lead to believe.

I realize my post is too large and shotgun like to be tackled or properly addressed. I just felt compelled to share my feelings.
 
Last edited:
I hear you... then again, seems like we're compelled to dance around all sorts of silliness: fundy christians, fundy neoliberals, fundy muslims, fundy climate alarmists. the list is never ending... so why not give TJump and his fundy Skeptics a shot :)

Yeah, but these dogs are dead in terms of reasoned and informed discussion. However I do confess I gave the fundy 'skeptics' a solid working out in the late 90s and early naughties - so I shouldn't begrude others the same road to disappointment and boredom.

There are all kinds of POV that do not merit serious engagement - because they are not well informed and they are not open hearted. Reguritated pre-digested fare is proper nourishment for some folk, and I do not want to disparage their needs. They are not compatible with mine. I don't mix with fundies, not because they are not good people but because we have nothing in common beyond the necessary pleasantries. I have family members like this. We meet and share a meal and engage in careful inconsequential chat and then we retire to our own ways.

I believe in inclusive and diverse workplaces - where we work together to do good things that benefit our shared community. But I don't talk politics or philosophy or religion because what unites us means more to me than what divides us.

Probably on some cosmic level what we are doing is counted as 'silliness' - but its our silliness and it does us some good. I am content to leave others to their sillinesses - unless it causes ill beyond their zone of conceit and delusion.

My point about materialistic atheism is that it has said nothing new in decades - and that's because its a small club of opinion that is not supported by any kind of evidence. It has backed itself into a corner. Its a POV that does not engage with contrary evidence in any open hearted or open minded way. It relies on reductionistic logic that has set rules nobody has agreed to - but we are induced to play to. It has made assumptions that it refuses to test or examine - but demands are true - because they just have to be.

Once you decline to accept then premise posed by the atheist the point of conversation dissipates. Now and then I get annoying Americian Christian missionaries at my door. Because I don't accept their premise about Jesus and the Bible we have no conversation. If they wanted to talk spirituality in a wider sense then we could have a conversation. But they know nothing but Jesus - and I know a lot more than that. I don't want to talk as if Jesus is the only game in town. I am cool that they think he is, but I'd rather they stayed away because a Jesus only conversation is boring to me - been there, done that and now I am over it.

The same is with atheistic materialists. I don't mind metaphysical atheists. Materialistic atheism is not even remotely intelligent even though its adherents have a remarkably high opinion of themselves. It doesn't really have any content - kinda like a philosophical puffed wheat - neither substantial nor nourishing but undoubtedly present. I do know that there's a kind of materialist philosophy - but there's a difference between arguing from an asserted premise and inquiring as to what is true. The former is theology for theists - and hence atheology for atheists. In each case the rules for what you can believe are set before the argument begins - and everything asserted must obey the rules. I listened to nigh on 80 hours of staged debates between atheists and theists. I subjected myself to that torture because I wanted to know whether either side evolved their debate in consequence of hearing the other side. They did not. It was all posturing to one's own - just a sport - mere entertainment and propaganda. It was not truth seeking.

I don't waste my time talking to people who are not truth seeking. I used to do that, but I came to understand it was a waste of time - mere sport. I do not want to cast aspersions on TJump's character. He might be a delightful and pleasant person to know. He is entirely free to think as he does. But I have heard it all, before and I am unimpressed and bored.

That's just me. I have been in a shitty mood lately. Decided to say something because it was a POV not being expressed.
 
Back
Top