should all good athiest sceintist should believe in......

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
"I went out there where everything is. I could see everything and talk to everything because it's all around us all the time, we just can't see it most of the time.
When I think of what he said, it becomes easy to understand ghosts and angels."

[/ QUOTE ]

This I do get. Seeing that in an infinite set that anything's possible, he may have understood that his death instinctively doesn't end who he is, but that he may have the capability to exist and grow beyond that.

A reality with quantum laws would render cause and effect useless, but they would be paired with potentiality to reverse in such a worldview. Making ghosts and angels plausible. That's a nice way to look at the world, knowing that comfort, isn't it?

[Splendour]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"I went out there where everything is. I could see everything and talk to everything because it's all around us all the time, we just can't see it most of the time.
When I think of what he said, it becomes easy to understand ghosts and angels."

[/ QUOTE ]

This I do get. Seeing that in an infinite set that anything's possible, he may have understood that his death instinctively doesn't end who he is, but that he may have the capability to exist and grow beyond that.

A reality with quantum laws would render cause and effect useless, but they would be paired with potentiality to reverse in such a worldview. Making ghosts and angels plausible. That's a nice way to look at the world, knowing that comfort, isn't it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I've managed to read the first chapter or so of his book. It seems he's a pediatrician who has written 2 other bestsellers and he's been studying children's NDEs for a while. He says people have a "God Spot" in their right temporal lobe. He also claims from an experience he had that the body is a part of the soul instead of the soul being contained in the body. I'm not passing any opinions or judgments on this, but its an interesting perspective. He says because he has an independent source of income from his own medical practice that he's not as subject to the scientific bias that academia and the scientific community put on people that try to research in this area.

[FortunaMaximus]

What about personal bias? He may, as an individual, be trying to find something bigger than his own mortality, which is something fairly common in human nature. Financial motivation isn't enough to discount the possibility he has a bias. Scientific bias is unique in that it demands very high standards of proof and faith isn't enough.

In science, the distinction between mind and body is an issue that's been debated for the ages. To date, there's been no solution, only speculation and conjecture. And I tend to think the answer will come through science, whether it finds its own solution or confirms what faith and religion hopes for.

And it's the early 21st century and medical science and neurology has only become more developed in the past half century or so.

I'm dubious, but enjoy the read. Perhaps there'll be a confirmed solution to this riddle in decades or centuries, but certainly it doesn't sound as if he's found the answer.

[Splendour]

Well what if we're designed to have the bias and he's just going with the flow ..hehe [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Splendour]

Hey look what I found:http://www.melvinmorse.com/e-tlp.htm

Hopefully the medical community will treat him more gently than they did Semmelweis whose "observations went against the current scientific opinion of the time, which blamed diseases (among other quite odd causes) on an imbalance of the basic "four humours" in the body, a theory known as dyscrasia" -(an excerpt from Wikipedia on Semmelweis.)

[teampursuit]

[ QUOTE ]
" Gravity is roughly 1039 times weaker than electromagnetism. If gravity had been 1033 times weaker than electromagnetism, "stars would be a billion times less massive and would burn a million times faster."

The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example).

A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars.

If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were not exactly as it is--roughly twice the mass of an electron--then all neutrons would have become protons or vice versa. Say good-bye to chemistry as we know it--and to life."

Wait a second. There is a problem here. And it is NOT the points made by the silly atheists. Rather it is this: GOD doesn't have to worry about these constraints. Do you think he needs to make the weak force 1028 times the force of gravity to have water or humans?

If your argument has merit (a ticklish question that I have not yet answered for myself) it would only be an argument for that six year old from the fifth dimension playing with his chemistry set. Or for the god of Einstein and my father. A god who is constrained by laws more powerful than he is. Not the one who will decide on your afterlife.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hawking gave a talk (at the Vatican, of all places, around 1986) called something like "How much choice did God have in creating the Universe?". David, you're exactly right, I think, when you say "none".

We are the way we are because things were the way they were.

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
The answer is no. A multi-universe model might make the most sense, but that is not implied by a "no God" assumption. Rather it can only be justified according to the best or most likely extrapolations from theoretical physics and cosmology.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are wrong Bluebassman,

This isn't a question about physics or cosmology. Although it touches greatly on those things, the realm of this question is philosphy....at least until physics can test for the exsistence alternate universes.

Stu

[bluesbassman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The answer is no. A multi-universe model might make the most sense, but that is not implied by a "no God" assumption. Rather it can only be justified according to the best or most likely extrapolations from theoretical physics and cosmology.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are wrong Bluebassman,

This isn't a question about physics or cosmology. Although it touches greatly on those things, the realm of this question is philosphy....at least until physics can test for the exsistence alternate universes.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

Fine. Once we start speculating about a multi-universe, the boundary between physics and philosophy becomes fuzzy. No reason to quibble over that.

Your original proposition is indeed a question of philosophy, and the answer is still no.

[MaxWeiss]

I don't know much about the multiverse theory, but I can tell it it is INFINITELY more likely than god. Multiverses are theorized because they are one explanation that fits the data. God is theorized because he can fit anything and is comforting.

[dragonystic]

you dont necessarily need more than 1 universe. whos to say that this is the first iteration of this universe? it could have flared into existence, with no life flourishing, collapsed on itself, and repeat. until there is life as we know it.

as to your specific question, my answer is no! a good scientist bases his beliefs on the relevant data. just like god, or an afterlife...there is no possible way to determine if there are more universes outside of our own. to believe, atleast with our current knowledge, would be purely faith.