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Is this a good argument for life after death?

From "Stillness Speaks" by Eckhart Tolle, page 109-110

"How short-lived every human experience is, how fleeting our lives. Is there anything that is not subject to birth and death, anything that is eternal?

Consider this: if there were only one color, let us say blue, and the entire world and everything in it were blue, then there would be no blue. There needs to be something that is not blue so that blue can be recognized; otherwise, it would not stand out and would not exist.

In the same way, does it not require something that is not fleeting and impermanent for the fleetingness of all things to be recognized? In other words: if everything, including yourself, were impermanent, would you even know it? Does the fact that you are aware of and can witness the short-lived nature of all forms, including your own, not mean that there is something in you that is not subject to decay?"

Very good Winston, I believe there is an afterlife. 16 million Americans have had near death experiences over the past 20 years. They all can't be explained away by being drug induced, hallucinations, etc. There is too much compelling evidence to suggest that there is not an afterlife.

The Scientific and Rationalist Case for Life After Death, by Atheist Michael Roll

Very interesting videos! If and when scientist discover for a fact that their is an afterlife, it will rock the whole world!

Film: The Science Of Eternity

The greatest question affecting each and every human being is the question of death and dying. Do we simply cease to exist or do we pass quite naturally into the next world? Astounding personal encounters with supposedly dead relatives coupled with new scientific evidence based on quantum physics - the study of the invisible part of the universe - suggests that WE ALL SURVIVE death.

Written and presented by Alan Pemberton this 60 minute video features:

Ronald Pearson - This scientist's papers linking survival after death with subatomic physics have been peer-refereed and published by physicists in Russia and the USA.

Michael Roll - The author of the pamphlet 'The Scientific Proof of Survival After Death'.

Gwen and Alf Byrne - These parents have been physically reunited with their "dead" son, Russell, in several hundred repeatable experiments.

Tom Harrison - He tells the story of his the incredible mediumship of his mother, Minnie Harrison, who was one of the greatest materialisation mediums ever to make contact with people in the etheric universe.

David Icke - Talks about life after death.

Part 1 of 7:

Got a few tales of life after death, but it's so hard to believe in for me. I'm a natural skeptic.

My beloved doggy died of old age a couple of years back. The night after he died (I wasn't living at home) my parents were sleeping in different rooms due to my father's godawful snoring About 3am they both, at the same time, heard my dog's distinctive barking at the bottom of the stairs.

Both my parents have also seen their parents after they had passed away. They all looked happy and reassuring, with expressions as if to say, 'it's okay after all!'

Hm.

To my knowledge, I have no personal experienced with people communicating with me after dying, but,

1. Soon after my father's mother died (not sure how many days), he claims to have received a call from her on his work phone during the day, same voice just as if she was alive asking for him. Instead of responding, he put the phone down. She never called again.

2. I had a girlfriend out in sticks of Bade, Taoyuan who's father suddenly died at home. Soon after (I think before the wake), at something like 1 or 2 am, she and her mother heard very loud pounding on their front door which leads directly outside to the main street. After the girl rushed over and opened it, there was no sign of anyone, just total silence and no traffic (Bade is remotely located and quiet late at night). I went to stay with them for a couple days after that but it never happened again.

What about life before birth?

If we really survive death somehow, I wonder whether or not our memory of our current life will be erased. I mean, if we survive death, it seems natural that we also existed before birth. But that memory is gone, at least for the period we are on earth.

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Winston if you continue to flood your forum with CT and similar topics you are going to lose membership. It's your forum, but I have seen this happen repeatedly. Your forum will begin to attract only true believers in CT and you will scare off everyone else.

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/mich ... ience.html


Book review: Science and the Near-Death Experience

I received my copy of Chris Carter's new book a few weeks ago, but personal events intervened before I could finish reading it, let alone give it a proper review. I've now read all of it, and I'm deeply impressed. Science and the Near-Death Experience is a major addition to the literature of near-death studies, one of the most comprehensive, exhaustively researched, and intellectually serious books ever to cover this fascinating field.

Even better, it's now available in a Kindle edition!

The book makes no secret of its conclusion; the subtitle is How Consciousness Survives Death. Carter lays out his case methodically and logically, like an attorney delivering a masterful closing argument. The opposing side's views are given their due, but the intention throughout is to show that there is a preponderance of evidence in favor of the survivalist interpretation.

Despite the density of its subject matter, Science and the Near-Death Experience is crisply readable. Carter manages the admirable feat of summarizing complicated scientific and philosophical controversies in just a few paragraphs. Take a look at his analysis of eliminitive materialism:

This may sound bizarre, but since materialism cannot account for consciousness, some materialists simply deny their own existence as conscious beings. They are driven to this act of desperation by their conviction that science, which they understand as applied materialism, supports them. Note the self-refuting nature of this position: If I believe that consciousness does not exist, then how could my belief exist? If my consciousness does not exist, then neither does my belief. And if my professed belief is nothing more than a machine going through its motions, then you have no reason to accept it as correct. [p. 71]

This argument isn't original with Carter, but I've seldom seen it expressed so neatly.

Carter's erudition is phenomenal; he seems to have read nearly everything about NDEs and a great deal about related subjects, ranging from ketamine injections to native American folklore. He covers nearly every major proposed psychological and physiological explanation for NDEs, deftly exposing their shortcomings. He treats us to a review of the history of science from ancient Greece to the present day; a crash course in quantum mechanics and its major interpretations (though omitting David Bohm's "holographic universe"); an overview of nascent hypotheses of quantum consciousness; and a look at theories of life and memory. He also throws in a section on deathbed visions. In some ways Science and the Near-Death Experience reminded me of Irreducible Mind in its scope and seriousness, though Carter's prose is more reader-friendly than the dry academic style of IM. (By the way, for those who were put off by the sky-high price of IM in hardcover, there's now a more affordable paperback edition.)

I do have a few criticisms of Carter's book. For one thing, I felt that it began too abruptly, plunging the reader into a heavy discussion of philosophy and science after only the briefest of introductions. It might have been preferable to move Chapter 7, "Reports from the Brink," to the beginning of the book, so as to present some typical NDEs and set the stage for the in-depth discussion that would follow.

I also found it odd that some of the more prominent critics of nonphysical interpretations of NDEs went unnamed. Two examples are Keith Augustine and Gerald Woerlee. Neither is mentioned in the book or included in the bibliography. In particular, I would have liked to see a detailed response to Woerlee's theory that NDEs are explainable in terms of partial consciousness during CPR or while under anesthesia.

Finally, I found Chapter 3, "Opinions from Neuroscience," rather sketchy. Only two neuroscientists - Wilder Penfield and John Eccles - are cited, and while they're both prominent figures, their work was carried out decades ago. Later in the book, however, we do learn of some contemporary neurologists who are critical of materialist explanations, and the section on quantum consciousness suggests an alternative to more conventional theories.

These are relatively minor criticisms, which I mention mainly for completeness. Overall, Science and the Near-Death Experience is a remarkable accomplishment, deserving the widest possible audience. I can't say it any better than Ervin Laszlo, who writes:

Carter's book is not only an important contribution to this literature; it is its current crowning achievement. For he masters both the theoretical and the evidential approach, showing that belief to the contrary of the survival of consciousness is mere, and now entirely obsolete, dogma, and that the evidence for survival is clear and rationally convincing. A book to read and to remember for the rest of one's life - and perhaps beyond ...

---------

P.S. I intend to post a very abbreviated version of this review on Amazon, and I suggest that readers who enjoyed Science and the Near-Death Experience post their own reviews there, as well. Reader reviews can be highly effective in selling books.

BellaRuth wrote:Got a few tales of life after death, but it's so hard to believe in for me. I'm a natural skeptic.

My beloved doggy died of old age a couple of years back. The night after he died (I wasn't living at home) my parents were sleeping in different rooms due to my father's godawful snoring About 3am they both, at the same time, heard my dog's distinctive barking at the bottom of the stairs.

Both my parents have also seen their parents after they had passed away. They all looked happy and reassuring, with expressions as if to say, 'it's okay after all!'

Hm.

When I lived in Puerto Rico, the lady at my guest house had a lap dog that she adored. It died of old age and she was desolate. They buried it and the day after as I was half asleep, I felt paws all over me and a dog that ran across my body. I even felt the bed shake.

My Dad came to my mom in her sleep, a bit said and non plussed- he did not intend to die. He looked healthy and about 30. My grandma also looked OK after her death in my mom's dreams. My own grandparents came to me in my sleep and they appeared not only calm but indifferent. Just sitting there on the bed and looking at me disinterestedly. Like they would sometimes in real life.

Rock wrote:What about life before birth?

If we really survive death somehow, I wonder whether or not our memory of our current life will be erased. I mean, if we survive death, it seems natural that we also existed before birth. But that memory is gone, at least for the period we are on earth.

Well, that is the main reasoning for reincarnation and it has been postulated by Greek philosophers as well.

The reason we do not remember past lives it is that memories are mostly just imprinted info on brain cells, and we have a new brain now. So, from this point of view we cannot remember anything. It is as if we have a new hard drive and the old one is buried somewhere and there was no way to copy anything from the old one. But there do seem to exist some traces in the depths of subconsciousness and experts can get to those. It is called what? Retrogression?

Aside from studying comparitive religion and metaphysics, I have also been investigating the paranormal for nearly ten years professionally. Think TAPS, Ghost Hunters, if you've ever seen it, but without all the melodrama, and in all likelihood, faked shit.

I have had enough experiences over the years to convince me that something does indeed exist beyond what we know as bodily death, without attaching any religion to it.

@ rock you wouldn't remember because if reincarnation is true, the material body is just like a garment, as the Bhagavad Gita states. You use it for a time, then shed it when it is worn out. The experiences that we have, what we say and do, generates the karma that dictates our future birth...the life ITSELF is of no merit. One Hindu mystic I like notes that if we were to remember our past life, we would likely be traumatized by it or puffed up egotistically about it...etc...which is not the point. Better to forget you were a king, or savagely murdered in a war.

@ Enishi...I've been studying NDE's for years, and have read several books on it. This sounds fantastic. I'm going to get it. I appreciate the recomendation.

@ ladislav- I would call it not subconsciousness, but superconsciousness. Hindu metaphysics believes that there is a higher self, an Atman, that has no beginning or end, that remembers all things. I think as one becomes more spiritually aware, through the practice of things like Yoga, meditation, contemplative prayer...you can attune to that Atman in a more profound way, open the third eye that is for most, almost entirely closed. As this happens, you may begin to notice imprints from a past life.

Further, there is the concept of the Universal Mind (as Edgar Cayce put it) or the Collective Unconscious (as Jung put it), similar, but not quite the same...too detailed to explain the differences here without sounding long winded...but the basic idea in either case is that all consciousness is not just individual, but collective, and this collective consciousness is always being imprinted by our thoughts and deeds...and some mystics feel that this too can be accessed. It has been referred to as the Book of Life from the Bible, and as the Akashic Records.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records

This would also explain where you get some of the past life recall from in the rare event that it does occur.

This is a great thread. Right up my alley lol.

I didn’t see anything rational here. He just kept on repeating the word “mathematics� without going into what specifically he was talking about. It seemed like another appeal to authority, to say, you should take me seriously because I used the word “mathematics�. I saw my father die, and there was nothing mysterious about it. The body just shuts down in predictable stages almost like a computer and then it ends. And he strongly believed in life after death.

Rock wrote:What about life before birth?

If we really survive death somehow, I wonder whether or not our memory of our current life will be erased. I mean, if we survive death, it seems natural that we also existed before birth. But that memory is gone, at least for the period we are on earth.

This is a good question. Some neurologists say that memories are not stored in the brain. They are stored in processes we can't understand that may be beyond physical reality. There are many articles on this if you want to Google "where is memory stored?"

But most of us do not remember our past lives, if we have them that is. Only a few do.

I often have impressions of a past life, or feelings of one, like a familiarity not consciously remembered. Do you ever have such feelings of a past you knew but can't remember?

It could be, as David Icke says, that we are prisoners on Earth and cut off from higher consciousness and our divine nature, made to feel separate from nature. This is why animals do not seem concerned with their mortality like we are. What this means is that dark forces have imprisoned us in this reality. Or mankind chose to fall from grace for some reason like the story in Genesis says, which may be symbolic not literal.

Here is a video that goes over 10 mysteries of the brain, including the mystery of how memory is stored.