Anyway, the numbers are not completely favorable to atheism.
Neither does the evidence favor atheism:
Let's forget about any "soul" for the reasons stated here https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/why-im-an-atheist-1424793
You are saying that awareness comes from "eternal nothing", but there is no evidence to suggest this; you say that "everything" seems to "force [you] to conclude" that we came from "eternal nothing", but when I press you on the details you are suddenly silent. In all reality, everything is suggesting to you that consciousness existed before and will continue to exist."It is more elegant and far easier to accept as a working hypothesis that sentience exists as a potential at the source of creation, and the strongest evidence has already been put on the table: Everything to be observed in the universe implies consciousness."
OP believed that it would be impossible to know of awareness after death, but he decided to stop responding to me as soon as we started discussing anoxia, brain function, and the timeline of awareness (see below). There is also a lot of supporting evidence from many different classes of phenomena that refutes the idea that awareness ends at death.
Even skeptic Chris French admitted that validating the formation of perception and memory during such a time-frame would suggest that consciousness is not being generated by the brain. Take a close look at the timeline! If one is "rational," then in common parlance this means that one can think clearly and is capable of intelligently assessing new ideas when presented.
Let's forget about any "soul" for the reasons stated here https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/why-im-an-atheist-1424793
How convenient for you that your reasons do not need to be backed up with evidence, and that the evidence that suggests a soul does not need to be addressed at all!
I STILL need you to explain to me how you will meet your burden of proof for showing that awareness comes from 'eternal nothing' because Currently, your explanation is not in accord with medical evidence about the timeline of awareness during cardiac arrest. The patient from the AWARE study had a true perception of a sound during a flat EEG (indicating an absence of brain activity), so his experience (a so-called "death experience") cannot be dismissed as hallucinations.
It's time for OP to admit that I have given a satisfactory counterexample to his unsupported idea that awareness ends at death:
Your statement that the brain can't have any activity once the oxygen flow stops is false. Brain activity measurable on a EGG only disappears after 20-40 seconds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death). This time is enough to leave memories of hallucinations. Actually, the hallucinations probably start before the complete stop of the supply of oxygen. And in that situation, 40 seconds of hallucinations might seem minutes to the near death individual.
This would not explain cases of longer duration, for example the patient in AWARE had perceptions which lasted at least 2 minutes and were verified by medical staff.My first assertion is that simple mechanism cannot yield the brain, that the brain is actually a computing machine connected to a spirit.
My second assertion is regarding anomalous perception that was documented in a medical setting (perception/awareness during a period when the brain is known to be non-functional).
These points demolish OP's assertion that the brain came from "eternal nothing". In fact, these points of mine are part of a scientific consensus:
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers
For example, Louis Pasteur strongly stated his agreement with these assertions (quote omitted).
"Whatever sense we make of this world... depends not on the evidence, but on what we choose, deliberately and consciously to conclude from that evidence… What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love." Accordingly, we can see that even in the growing numbers of non-religious people in the US, many are choosing NOT to go with atheism because it poses a clear health risk; fully 30% of the share identifying as “nothing in particular” are also affirming that religion is either “very” or “somewhat” important to them. So 30% of those who don't have a religion, still have a somewhat serious faith (not serious doubt).
Also, 53% of those raised as religiously unaffiliated still identify as “nones” in adulthood. That means that the odds of maintaining your religious unaffiliation (and therefore your serious doubts) is about 50:50, which is not impressive.
"A devout life is... mostly a matter of using insights into truth in building-up good habits; and this can be influenced by our will. A devout life enables one to build these habits and most importantly successfully pass them on to our children."
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/health-and-religion-1373864
