Hi celestio,
I hope you will stay and chat until our main disagreements are resolved...
You've stated that Atheist's can't believe in souls or an afterlife as those things aren't based in matter. I responded by saying the Universe is not only composed of matter, hence it's possible for Atheists to believe in a soul or afterlife that is composed of energy(Just like light or heat). You have not refuted that(Since you can't).
I have stated that atheists cannot believe in souls because humanists lack a concept of the afterlife,
not because souls are not material.
For the humanist, a soul is a foreign and inert concept--and nothing more than a concept, literally a word without a referent.
The energy you refer to is properly called "spirit", defined as a creative force which enables the birth of entities into the "material plane". If the existence of this spirit is a belief and not (yet) knowledge, then it is (so far) either unjustified or untrue or both. This leaves the atheist "still mistaken" until s/he acquires the justification for this belief; in other words, the concept is still inert (and the belief is unjustified) until it is recognized for what it is.
I propose that a
rationalist atheist would also dismiss claims about nature spirits, ancestor spirits, and the entire line of "spiritual" thinking, as nothing more than a metaphor run amok.
I've looked at the site you posted, near-death.com, and if that's your "proof", then goodbye. I'm not gonna bother responding anymore.
You are in a rush to exit this discussion? It's too bad because apparently you did not review all 52 points:
http://www.near-death.com/evidence.htmlYes, people who claimed to have had NDE's usually had higher than average oxygen levels, a feeling of the loss of the fear of death afterwords, and the majority have had some religious/spiritual belief. See anything interesting there?
I see many interesting things in the other points that you did not mention...
You and others making the claim that NDE's are some sort of proof for an afterlife is rather silly. I can easily make a counterclaim that NDE's are the body's reaction of having experienced or simulated to experience "death", and the NDE itself is just a false, hyper-realistic memory.
Your counterclaim lacks merit since it is without evidence to support it, as there is no reason (evidence) to believe that NDEs are the result of brain dysfunction; this tactic is typical of pseudo-skeptics. What is asserted without evidence may (easily) be dismissed without evidence.
Some drugs even produce similar effects that people claimed to experience in NDE(Which means it may have a empirical foundation, and not be related to anything "spiritual" or any afterlife at all).
OK, let's hypothesize as you are saying, that there is some kind of brain dysfunction that is causing NDE. What are we to make of these facts:
1) There is no reason (evidence) to believe that NDEs are the result of brain dysfunction.
2) NDEs are different from hallucinations.
3) Groups of dying people can share the same NDE.
4) NDEs change people unlike hallucinations and dreams.
5) NDEs cannot be explained by brain chemistry alone.
These points are from the near-death page and they discredit your faulty hypothesis; I want you to consider this point in particular:
You're making drastic conclusions with minuscule data, your entire "theory" is false or at least cannot be proven at all at this point.
Actually, with 52 points supporting the theory, it certainly does have merit and has advanced the fields of medical science, psychology, and philosophy; People having NDEs have even brought back scientific discoveries (!);
what cannot be proven is your counterclaim about some alternative mechanism that does not involve survival, as the skeptical hypotheses are either not valid or have been refuted with these 52 points; you can read more about the changing tides in mind-science in the book "Irreducible Mind", which supports the holonomic theory of mind also mentioned on the near-death page.
Once, atheism meant the opposition to, the resistance against god(s). Now, it only means freedom, to establish new norms and new institutions, and to tear them down and establish new ones again. I think the pseudo-skeptics are doing a disservice to atheists. Atheists should read more before coming to a faulty conclusion that is not supported by the evidence.