... such as Michael Shermer, whose book "Why People Believe Weird Things" (1997) I just read as an opposing viewpoint.  I'm a very critical reader and since I'm currently reading all I can get my hands on regarding the afterlife and spirituality I found it necessary to get another perspective as well.

Of course, I can understand why Shermer wants to explain everything with science or (when he get really desperate, like with NDEs that he can't quite explain away) something like "we just don't have enough knowledge yet to explain ...".  I was the greatest skeptic myself until very recently, when my husband's ADC from my late brother convinced me (don't ask my why, it just made perfect sense to me when nothing else ever had.)  Reading Shermer's book, I was almost convinced that my brother's apparition was a hypnogogic hallucination until it occurred to me that that's just another attempt at explaining the (to skeptics) unexplainable ;)

However, a little nagging voice inside me makes me wonder if I haven't just gone off the deep end, just wanting so desperately to believe that my brother is still with us and in a better place... that I'm also falling for the "weird things that people believe"!

Any thoughts?

DeLana

P.S.  Please don't misunderstand my question, I'm not trying to insult anyone for their beliefs! Just using Shermer's terminology.

A skeptic who tries to comment on what he "hasn't" experienced, is like a polliwog in a pond trying to use its theoretical knowledge to prove that the top of Mount Everest doesn't exist. How would a polliwog in a pond know about the top of Mount Everest?

Hi De Lana-
Your question reminds me of electricity A couple or three hundred years ago, electricity was known only through observation of lightening flashes, and the occasional spark between two lovers who walked over a carpet to kiss. That's where we are now with regard to the world of exotic phenomena. In a sense, we're all polliwogs (that's a great image!), and the Great Debate is whether there is "Reality" on the other side of the surface of the pond. Indeed, we ask, "Is there another side?" (Mount Everest is still a mythic place where the Good get to go after their tails and gills fall off.) Every so often we get a lightening flash, or see the leg of a frog dipping back into our domain, but we actually have no good explanation about it.

Denial is the basic defense ploy for a troubled mind. To say that these experience "do not exist" is a simplistic way to avoid thinking about them, but it solves nothing. What we need to do is to grow up and become frogs. But, by Official Denial, made by the Gods of Science and Other Sacred Cows, of a possible "Reality" on the other side of the water's surface, because we have neither a good theory nor a direct image with which to cope with such data, we deny our ability to grow in that direction, and we seriously impede those who look into such arcane topics. That leaves us in two camps, those who believe in Frogdom, and those who believe that when the tail and gills fall off, that's the End. And then there are a few who simply go on with our lives, watching the occasional lightening strike, as we seek for the secrets of electricity.
Ribbet
dave

Thanks for your great analogies...

Maybe skeptics are desperately crying out to anyone who can to provide some kind of proof: "Please, please somebody convince me that when I die I don't just - poof - disappear into nothingness."  By writing their controversial books, they try to attract attention.  When I read the book, I got the impression that he tried to make a case for this nothingness, but that the thought didn't exactly bring him comfort (how could it?)

I understand skeptics so well, having been one so recently.  Every human being is desperate for the answer to "What's the purpose of life?"  If blind faith in religious dogma doesn't make sense to you (as it doesn't to me) and you have nothing else that gives you anything to believe in, you feel very lost.  I have never had any kind of supernatural experience or even unusual dream myself, but for some reason, my husband's ADCs made perfect sense to me.  They're enough proof for a theory (that there is an afterlife, and it is wonderful).  Enough proof for me, anyway.

Of course, I'm just at the beginning.  There is much to be learned.

Thank you all for helping me along.

DeLana

It is far to easy to be a skeptic. To believe in the afterlife, while some can have that blind 'its real because i think it is' belief, you have to research and look into it, you have to feel and open your mind, you have to be convinced. To be a skeptic all you have to do is remember one line "your wrong because I say your wrong" and that sadly is the mentality most skeptics have.


The true skeptic is the one who is actually sitting on the fence between belief/non-belief, yes/no, right/wrong etc until he himself has done that research and decided quite rightly which side he will step onto.

AH1976 wrote on Sep 8^th, 2006 at 7:31pm:

It is far to easy to be a skeptic. To believe in the afterlife, while some can have that blind 'its real because i think it is' belief, you have to research and look into it, you have to feel and open your mind, you have to be convinced. To be a skeptic all you have to do is remember one line "your wrong because I say your wrong" and that sadly is the mentality most skeptics have. The true skeptic is the one who is actually sitting on the fence between belief/non-belief, yes/no, right/wrong etc until he himself has done that research and decided quite rightly which side he will step onto.

You took the words out of my mouth senote  ;)

I can't quite understand the mentality of so called 'sceptics' who fervently believe in nothingness and judge non physical phenomena in physical terms.

Its not like there's no evidence for life after death and its not like there's no empirical or scientific understanding of it either. Its just the competitiveness of the professional world of science, which sadly in the mainstream, does not about seem to be about earnestly testing theories but more about the reputation and credibility of the scientists. So theories which conflict with the status quo rarely see the light of day and that is why the public at large is unaware about this evidence. Fortunately for me the internet is a great liberator in allowing a free information flow.

For those sceptics who are not professors nor scientists but merely make a reputation by publicly refuting all investigations and claims of 'paranormal' phenomena, I do not have much time for. It is unlikely they would have seriously done any research on afterlife because there precious entrenched anti afterlife beliefs are so strong that they do not even analyse the evidence and rebut it, they merely subjugate it to the same biased critique time and time again.

As an open minded sceptic I have sought to self educate myself on the information on the afterlife. That meaning I need to cover all bases. Discover what research their is about consciousness, energy, the mind-brain debate as well as various empirical areas of evidence: NDE's, EVP, Direct Voice and Materialisation Mediumship. Then of course our own direct experiences through dreams, apparitions and all the different techniques that people on this site are using! That is only a few of the areas of evidence that exist!

Well I'm rambling a bit now but I would sum it up like this.

To truly be a sceptic is to gain as full an understanding as possible about the afterlife. You don't have to do it the way I've done it, Everybody will choose their own path but to be a true sceptic does not mean dismissing things out of hand and only getting one side of the argument. I've observed both the scientific materialistic world view and more recently a world view which is both empirical and scientific in approach and it supports my belief in the afterlife.

The world would be a better place if people just made the conscious decision to investigate with the will to learn and without fear of learning new things that might conflict with what they already 'know'.

As far as the afterlife evidence is concerned. The best apart from your own direct experiences might be found on Victor Zammit's website. I fully recommend listening to some of the audio tapes of the materialisation sessions.

http://www.victorzammit.com/

Never say die wrote on Sep 9^th, 2006 at 12:20pm:

I can't quite understand the mentality of so called 'sceptics' who fervently believe in nothingness and judge non physical phenomena in physical terms.

LOL being fair they can't understand the mentality of the 'open minded', if we all understood each other the world would be a brighter sunnier place.

Oh gosh .. brrrr ... croak .... thanks for the laugh  ::)

Hi I would say to a serious skeptic who always insist on trying either to prove the afterlife does not exist or they just do not beleive,where is his or her proof that it does not exist.

Love and God bless you all Juditha

Good point Juditha. There isn't any proof that the afterlife doesn't exist.


wrote on Sep 11^th, 2006 at 1:02pm:

Hi I would say to a serious skeptic who always insist on trying either to prove the afterlife does not exist or they just do not beleive,where is his or her proof that it does not exist. Love and God bless you all Juditha