Hi everyone. I´m new here. I like the tone in this forum, thankyou all for contributing to it, though I won´t become a particularly avid poster. The reason for me to get signed up now, was these difficulties affecting IANDs. At this point, I believe that earlier posters have done a good job of expressing the importance of the matter, but still, since this is a question at heart to me, here are my thoughts.
It seems like IANDs is in some kind of ideological slump. I am not familiar with the American system, but in my country how to handle this, in a serious association of IANDs magnitude, would have been secured by their statues.
To be able to improve the tools for making NDEs scientifically accepted IANDs have to ensure their own methods is credited as ethically house-trained. Defense mode in respecting personal religions, regarding to the questions raised by Anne A Bs behavior, makes them sadly enough miss that point. I really hope they will be able to embrace that! If not it creates disorientation according to what kind of agenda inspires those put in place to run IANDs.
The most important reason for neutrality is the fact that in the same moment one particular item gets highlighted or included – another one gets in the shadow or excluded. An association like IANDs should have the mature strength to emphasize that at the same time as they ensure respect for any individual personal beliefs. Now it looks like the heads of IANDs need some processing according to poor boundaries, to accomplish that. What are they going to do otherwise to make sure to remain neutral? Allow/encourage every member, to hand out personal preferable salvation material, on their events? Begin their events like this?
It also seems backward if the members of the board consider it negligible that the person they trust to be their specialist in handling IANDs public affairs and to be in the right position to improve their connections to media is religiously involved to the degree that she will use the platform of IANDs to promote and connect to her religious affiliation. May it be of a non-cultic, a mild-cultic, or severe-cultic kind. If they not are able to figure out how to make clear that this is not in the manual for IANDs workers, because the importance of the intellectual integrity they as such need to honor, IANDs will be a very easy target for intentional or unintentional corruption.
And, finally it is very confusing that the supposed spider in their public world web is shying away from clearing out the business with Skeptiko herself, at the same time as the board in general obviously regards this as a forum important enough for them to assign dr. May to do it. On their behalf in defense mode.
I hope IANDs will be able to sort this out in a way that keeps their reputation in order and strengthen their understanding of the important points that have been made in the interview and in this thread.