Momopi, questions for you about miracles and the paranormal

[Winston]

Momopi,
I have a few questions.

1. Even though you don't believe in anything outside of the physical universe, you do acknowledge that there are many things that are unexplained and that miracles that defy explanation occur, right?

I mean there are many cases of healings and miracles that have baffled doctors.

One time I saw Evander Holyfield, the champion boxer, speak at a church in San Jose. He told the story of how he had a hole in his heart and how it suddenly healed after he became born again and asked forgiveness from God. His doctor was baffled at the sudden healing.

Many unexplained cases like this exist.

You admit it right? You admit that there are many things we can't explain right?

2. Do you admit that the universe is not necessarily limited by the limitations of your world view and belief system? In other words, your world view of things do not define the limitations and boundaries of the universe, reality and beyond. Agreed?

3. How do you explain the countless documented paranormal stories out there that defy conventional explanation? Do you just erase them from your mind? If so, why? You do understand that erasing them from your mind does NOT mean that they never happened and aren't real, right?

4. If ghosts don't exist, then what about the cases where two or more people se the same ghost? And what about hauntings where objects physically move by themselves? My close friend witnessed this before. A glass flew out at him from a table. It was very paranormal.

How do you explain that?

[momopi]

I mean there are many cases of healings and miracles that have baffled doctors.

Go to the miracle faith healer and ask him this question: "if you got into a car accident today and broke your leg (bone), would you go to the hospital or pray for divine healing?

If he replies that God will heal his leg, ask him if it's OK if you smash his leg with a baseball bat.

3. How do you explain the countless documented paranormal stories out there that defy conventional explanation? Do you just erase them from your mind? If so, why? You do understand that erasing them from your mind does NOT mean that they never happened and aren't real, right?

Is conventional wisdom sometimes wrong? Oh yes, read "The Lady Tasting Tea. She proved that all the scientific minds and doctors in the room were all wrong, by proving her ability with test-retest reliability at 95% or better.

Want to see if ghosts exist? Go to a hospital and talk to some folks who are going to die very soon. Ask them to meet you at Starbucks after they die. Heck, ask 100 terminally ill patients. Out of 100, at least one should be nice enough to pay you a visit in life after death, right? Don't forgot your video camera and take good pictures, no fuzzy bigfoot stuff.

I don't buy the "XXX works in mysterious ways" bullsh*t. Hey, I wish there was life after death and people could become ghosts and communicate with us. I had a very good teacher back in HS who spent his life acquiring knowledge, it's really a shame that you lose it all when he dies. But wishful thinking is not reality, so we buried his ashes under a liquid amber tree at El Dorado Park (with permission) in Long Beach. No gravestone, no head in a jar.

[Winston]

Momopi,
Come on now. You're not really answering the questions.

No one would rely only on a faith healer to heal broken bones. It's always best to use both conventional and holistic methods. BOTH. Not one or the other. You are giving red herrings here.

The point is, healings sometimes happen that you can't explain. Why can't you admit that?

I'm not talking about tea tasting. I'm talking about paranormal and supernatural events with no conventional explanation.

You assume that one has total control of their afterlife state if they turn into a ghost or spirit. You have no proof of that. That's just idle speculation.

Besides, some have been visited by the deceased. Remember?

Why can't you admit that REAL things happen that you can't explain?

You didn't answer the other two questions above.

[momopi]

No one would rely only on a faith healer to heal broken bones. It's always best to use both conventional and holistic methods. BOTH. Not one or the other. You are giving red herrings here.

Why do you think that nobody would rely on faith healers or miracle workers to heal a broken leg bone?

I work with clients who are in the CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) field. They're moving toward an integrated treatment approach where you combine both conventional western medicine with other alternative treatment methods, such as TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), acupuncture, and massage therapy.

If you have a chronic headache, my acupuncture doctor, or his massage therapist Rosa can probably help you. But if you have a broken leg bone, please visit the emergency room at Kaiser hospital. Oh and if you know of any "miracle healer" who can fix heart defects with prayer, let me know and I'll get him lots of converts at local hospitals.

You assume that one has total control of their afterlife state if they turn into a ghost or spirit. You have no proof of that. That's just idle speculation.
Besides, some have been visited by the deceased. Remember?

Fuzzy bigfoot pictures is result of bigfoot working in mysterious ways and have no direct control of how the pictures would come out? Hey lots of people think they saw bigfoot, so it must be true right? Yeah... right.

If you want to test for "life after death" or NDE, get funding to assemble a medical staff and volunteer (paid) control group. Have the doctors artificially induce clinical death, either with drugs to induce cardiac arrest, or lower the subject's body temp, stop the heart & brain functions with drugs, turn off the heart-lung machine, and drain the subject's blood to eliminate blood pressure. At 18C the clinically dead subject can be maintained for up to 1 hour, then resuscitated without permanent damage. Afterwards you can interview the subjects to describe their experience and compile your data, then re-test (validate) as budget permits. Yes doctors do this kind of procedure, like operating on cerebral aneurysms.

Also, if you expect people to answer your questions, ask fewer questions, or pay people $ for their time -- you have my paypal account info. My time is not unlimited, and I'd rather be playing Fallout 3 or Mass Effect than to reply to your silly questions. But if you paid me $ so that I can buy Mass Effect 2, I might be inclined to give you an hour of my time.

[Winston]

No one would rely only on a faith healer to heal broken bones. It's always best to use both conventional and holistic methods. BOTH. Not one or the other. You are giving red herrings here.

Why do you think that nobody would rely on faith healers or miracle workers to heal a broken leg bone?

I work with clients who are in the CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) field. They're moving toward an integrated treatment approach where you combine both conventional western medicine with other alternative treatment methods, such as TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), acupuncture, and massage therapy.

If you have a chronic headache, my acupuncture doctor, or his massage therapist Rosa can probably help you. But if you have a broken leg bone, please visit the emergency room at Kaiser hospital. Oh and if you know of any "miracle healer" who can fix heart defects with prayer, let me know and I'll get him lots of converts at local hospitals.

You assume that one has total control of their afterlife state if they turn into a ghost or spirit. You have no proof of that. That's just idle speculation.
Besides, some have been visited by the deceased. Remember?

Fuzzy bigfoot pictures is result of bigfoot working in mysterious ways and have no direct control of how the pictures would come out? Hey lots of people think they saw bigfoot, so it must be true right? Yeah... right.

If you want to test for "life after death" or NDE, get funding to assemble a medical staff and volunteer (paid) control group. Have the doctors artificially induce clinical death, either with drugs to induce cardiac arrest, or lower the subject's body temp, stop the heart & brain functions with drugs, turn off the heart-lung machine, and drain the subject's blood to eliminate blood pressure. At 18C the clinically dead subject can be maintained for up to 1 hour, then resuscitated without permanent damage. Afterwards you can interview the subjects to describe their experience and compile your data, then re-test (validate) as budget permits. Yes doctors do this kind of procedure, like operating on cerebral aneurysms.

Also, if you expect people to answer your questions, ask fewer questions, or pay people $ for their time. Otherwise, don't bother.

Even acupuncture works based on a meridian system that involves chi and points on the body that correspond to organs, which defy conventional science. Yet it does work for a lot of people.

Are you of the opinion that everything that western science doesn't understand MUST be due to placebo only?

I don't know of anyone who uses a faith healer to fix broken bones. Modern educated people don't do that.

But faith healing does not have zero value. It works sometimes and for some.

Remember the Evander Holyfield account I told you about above? That's an example of a healing that astounded doctors.

We do not have absolute control over the paranormal. But sometimes things happen that have no conventional explanation. Why are you afraid of that? Why are you against the mysterious and the unexplained? Perhaps you are afraid of such areas? If so, others like me relish in it.

Actually, NDE books and programs have said that bringing a patient close to death to study NDE's is illegal and risky. There are doctors that study NDE's like Melvin Morse and Michael Sabom and Peter Fenwick. They are MD's and considered experts in NDE's. You should read their work if you want to learn more about them. They know a helluva lot more than you. That's for sure. So WHY don't you LEARN from them? Don't you have a love of learning and knowledge??????? Why do you act like you have all the answers already?????????

FYI, patients who come close to death or reach clinical death for a while sometimes have NDE's and sometimes they don't. No one knows why. But all these stats are documented in many NDE books. I'll bet you haven't read a single one of them. Am I right? What have you read exactly on this topic?

Btw, I've met Dr. Melvin Morse, pediatrician and author of books about child NDE's. He lives in Redmond, WA and I invited him up to speak at our Paranormal group. He was very eloquent and was in the middle on a lot of beliefs. He does not believe in the traditional idea of a soul, but he also explains why material explanations do not fit every case of the NDE.

Again, why don't you LEARN from people who know more than you?

[momopi]

I don't know of anyone who uses a faith healer to fix broken bones. Modern educated people don't do that.

People don't go to a faith healher to fix a broken leg, because they know it doesn't work. Same with heart defects and brain tumors. The world is filled with quacks, faith healers, and televangelists who "heal" people in front of massed audience. I'm with Larry Flint on this one, they're peddling the same products that Flint is selling. It's just a different kind of orgasm.

Even acupuncture works based on a meridian system that involves chi and points on the body that correspond to organs, which defy conventional science. Yet it does work for a lot of people.

Naw, that ancient Chinese secrets stuff is for tourists. Acupuncture has been extensively studied, tested, and licensed around the world. When you poke a needle near nerves and add electrical charges, it's a direct stimuli and not placebo. Acupuncture is an effective non-drug pain treatment method for many people. My Taiwanese acupuncture doctor doesn't believe in that meridian stuff, but he won't admit it to his patients. He also sends all patients with signs of serious illness to local hospital immediately. It's amazing how many idiots neglect their check-ups, and arrive at a pain treatment clinic with their arteries blocked or pending liver failure.

No one would rely only on a faith healer to heal broken bones. It's always best to use both conventional and holistic methods. BOTH. Not one or the other. You are giving red herrings here.

It's called CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine). The reason why it;'s "complementary" is because it won't fix a broke leg or cancer, but it will help you deal with the pain. There are physical limitations to what holistic healing can do. If you know of a "faith healer" who can cure heart defects, let me know and I'll get him lots of converts at local hospitals. Oh and no "only works in mysterious ways" -- no fuzzy big foot pictures plz.

Again, why don't you LEARN from people who know more than you?

Because I'm not Steven King looking for materials for my next fiction. "Life" after death is both an invention of religion and an oxymoron. I don't plan to waste time on something this silly, but if you wish, feel free to... worship giant space alien gods with octopus heads from the planet Vhoorl in the 23rd nebula, order a copy of the Necronomicon and sign up with on-line courses at Miskatonic University.

Can there ever be a meaningful existence after death, or separated from the physical body? While I don't believe in the religious concept of a "soul" or supernatural spirit, many Sci-Fi writers have explored the concept of uploading a person's "data ghost" into a network (or "shell") as the next evolutionary step in man-machine interface. You can watch "Ghost in the Shell" series for examples. Dr. Who episode "Silence in the Library" also explored this concept on a much smaller scale. IMO if we were to ever have a meaningful existence after death, it'd be made possible by technology and not "nature".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy ... _the_Shell