My near-death experience, which was both horrifying and enlightening, has forced me to see life differently.
It took me years to come to terms with my near-death experience, which has both haunted and enlightened me. I'd heard of near-death experiences since I was a child and remember seeing the documentary movie, Beyond and Back, when I was only nine years old. The film, narrated by Brad Crandall, made me think about our relevance here in the physical world. It showed re-creation after re-creation of people going to Heaven and meeting Jesus, who didn’t seem as judgmental as the right wing Christians made him out to be.…
Article comments
76 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, now you predictably resort to one of your standard avoidance techniques.
Your original arguments made little to no sense, so why should anybody waste their time exploring the so-called supporting material upon which you base your perspective.
Try coming up with some coherent remarks and you'll get the respect you so clearly crave. Or, if that's too much for you, try responding to my actual remarks, rather than either ignoring them or trying to pass off my reasonable rejection of your offer to join you in the mental cul de sac you occupy as being a "frozen refusal". We both know there is only one person that is frozen here...
77 - Christopher Rose
Oh, by the way, did you mean "benighted"?
According to Google, that means
"overtaken by night or darkness; "benighted (or nighted) travelers hurrying toward home"
lacking enlightenment or knowledge or culture; "this benighted country"; "benighted ages of barbarism and superstition"; "the dark ages"; "a dark age in the history of education"
I rather think you fit the definitions somewhat more closely than I.
78 - zingzing
ruvy, as i use a mac at home, i cannot watch the video here. if i find a way... which would probably include using a friend's pc, it would probably just lead to a strange situation.
and chris, did you just reference public enemy with that frozen remark? heh. i hope not. it got them into enough trouble.
79 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I had meant to type beknighted, but given many of your attitudes, I may not have made an error after all.
If you re-read comment #44, you'll notice the following:
If you take away the immediate and very stressful situation that this country (and a good part of the world) is undergoing immediately prior to the arrival of the messiah, and concentrate on what you view as what will occur in a better world to come, and what I view will happen in a messianic world, you will realize that the two of us are not that far apart in our visions of the future.
We are both optimists, believing in lengthened lifespans, far improved health for most of us, prosperity for a good part of the world's population, world peace, and reconciliations between peoples.
Not only are you unable to see an olive branch when it is offered, you are unable to realize that having looked at links that you sent me a while back - and having bookmarked them as well - I have some comprehension as to the things you look at as important in the near to long term future.
I do not crave the respect of fools and cowards who deliberately close their eyes to Reality, Chris. Where you have insight to offer, I seek it. Otherwise.... Well, the otherwise speaks for itself.
You'll believe what you will. To your own loss.
80 - Christopher Rose
zingzing, I did work with Professor Griff for a while but, no, I wasn't referencing Public Enemy nor know of the context in which they used it. If you look at the remark preceding mine, you will find where it started...
81 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
As it turns out, Chris, I typed "beknighted" originally in my comment after all. May I suggest that you get either a good pair of glasses before rushing to conclusions, or have your eyes checked.
82 - Christopher Rose
You DID type "beknighted", hence my question.
Are your glasses still broken, Ruvy? That would explain your apparent reading difficulty, although it wouldn't explain your mental astigmatism, which mistakes a free and open mind for one ensnared in the wayward dreams of dogma and vice versa.
I did indeed notice your reference to the topics I mentioned to you in an earlier exchange and your claim to share those aspirations.
However, you think that they will occur for a select few after some cataclysmic action by a creature for which there is no reason to believe exists, whereas I think they will be achieved by the hard work of humans to the benefit of all.
I didn't, and don't, see that as an olive branch at all, just more of the magical thinking you and your faithist brethren so naively, destructively and determinedly embrace, to the detriment of us all. You don't offend me, but rather hope, reason and progress, which is why I reject your creed so completely.
83 - Leslie Bohn
Zing, the origins of religion is a fascinating topic. I think much of what you say is probably true about religion explaining physical phenomena, but of course it's more complicated than that. There could have been some adaptive advantage to religion during the period that humans lived mostly in roving bands; perhaps religion's tendency toward group cohesion and xenophobia was an advantage in these times.
Our brains seem like they're wired for this kind of thought, and much research has been done in this area. For one thing, humans seem to be both inborn dualists andtend toward causation as an explanation for observable events (a rustle in the bushes might be caused by a predator, that nest was probably built by a small bird, not a huge bear), and these tendencies had adaptive advantages. You can see how these instincts could morph into belief in a central creator who causes everything.
There's also the premise that basic "god-friendly" traits like altruism and generosity are coded in our genomes and that religion piggy-backs on those sort of like a parasite.
There are lots of other explanations. Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell is a popular treatment of the topic, and Rodney Stark's Theory of Religion is a seminal work. Those interested in the topic might also try Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer, In Gods We Trust by Steven Atran, Theological Incorrectness by Jason Slone.
Are you familiar, zing, with the cargo cults of the Pacific Islands after WWII? It's almost a case study in the origins of religion -- basically a bunch of religions sprung up spontaneously and shared an amazing number of similarities. There was an article in the Smithsonian in February 2006 about the most famous of these, the John Frum cult, which still exists. Not sure if it's online.
84 - zingzing
will have to look that up, leslie. sounds interesting.
85 - Dr Dreadful
Ruvy #71:
Sorry to be so long in responding. I had already read that excerpt from the website, though, when I had a look around it yesterday.
The Skeptics' Dictionary piece cited numerous studies which had been done and based on the results concluded, quite reasonably, that FC wasn't valid. The entry has not been updated because nothing has happened since to change that conclusion.
I did a Google search of Galia's name, and her mother Shulamit's, and the only hits were from Amazon and assorted Jewish websites. So it seems that Galia is only of parochial interest and not the earth-shaking phenomenon you seem to think she is.
After another look at her site, I tend to think that the Skepdic assessment of FC as pseudoscience is still sound. A lot of what Galia allegedly does (for example, the incident with the briefcase) is strikingly similar to the 'work' of John Edward or a thousand other psychics and mediums - elaborate parlour tricks, in essence.
As I said, there are a lot of red flags. For example, the Skepdic article points out: "FC needs a kind stranger to work. And when the kind strangers and their patients are put to the test, they generally fail. We are told that is because the conditions made them nervous. These ad hoc excuses sound familiar; they sound like the complaints of parapsychologists."
Sure enough, on Galia's website, her mother writes: "The doubters were fueled by a notable academic study which produced poor results. Rosemary Crossley, however, another FC developer, argued that the tests used were frightening and conducted by examiners prejudiced against FC. To get results, an examiner needs to project confidence in the autistic’s ability."
86 - Leslie Bohn
Hence "confidence game."
87 - zingzing
or, "how to make loads of cash off your mentally disabled child."
88 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
DD,
As a manager, I learned a number of things about motivation. One of them is the importance of projecting confidence among subordinates.
Why?
If the subordinates do not have the necessary confidence to do their jobs properly, morale suffers and production drops.
That's a matter of dollars and cents (or shekels and agorot). If the morale is sufficient among a bunch of teenagers and adults to handle two or three busloads of customers who suddenly show up out of nowhere ordering 50 or 100 or 200 sandwiches over a few minutes, those customers will be handled confidently, and the drivers of the buses and the tour guides will be persuaded to return to that particular store the next time they are in the area. This kind of building up return customers is critical to a business like a Burger King, if it is to survive.
But projection of confidence is not an issue of intelligence, it is an issue of emotional response - just like pheromones project sexiness or the severe lack thereof.
This carries over to a whole number of other fields - warm fuzzies are needed in sales, politics, diplomacy, teaching, nursing, caregiving, and all sorts of other businesses where interpersonal communications are extremely important.
This also carries over to dealing with autistic and retarded people, who do not have the "intelligence" to judge things, but who react emotionally to friendliness or hostility. Like dogs and cats, they can sense fear or tension, and because there is little or no overlay of intellectualization, these sensations are primary.
So, Shulamit Gad, who is a teacher of special needs kids, can speak with some authority on when she says, "The doubters were fueled by a notable academic study which produced poor results. Rosemary Crossley, however, another FC developer, argued that the tests used were frightening and conducted by examiners prejudiced against FC. To get results, an examiner needs to project confidence in the autistic's ability."
This is not a red flag, it is an indication of understanding.
Others here have alleged that Shulamit Gad (and others) have been using their autistic children to rake in the money. This is simply not so. Most of the book Galia, is up on the Messages from Heaven Site. I don't have to buy the books. Between Shulamit Gad's lecture and the various proofs cited at the site, all that is relevant is presented - at no cost to me or you or anyone else. This is also true of other sites where autistic children warn of the Redemption and of what needs to be done to prepare for it. So to make this assertion is slander, at best.
I did a Google search of Galia's name, and her mother Shulamit's, and the only hits were from Amazon and assorted Jewish websites. So it seems that Galia is only of parochial interest and not the earth-shaking phenomenon you seem to think she is.
It is mostly Jews who will be interested in the Redemption of the Jewish people. Jews generally do not bother other people with their beliefs. I have presented the Redemption as an issue that deals with everybody, because it does, but most Jews do not look at it that way. Most religious Jews turn inward rather than outward, and concentrate on trying to circle their wagons in a hostile world.
Jews generally (religious or not) are still on the defensive. They are too busy making a case for why they should be allowed to exist in peace, or explaining why Christian fundies are a threat to them. They do not think to go on the offensive, as I do, and bluntly assert that in light of the Redemptive process, the person that Americans choose as their president is of little consequence, and that American interference in the affairs of this country is a hindrance at best and destructive at worst, or that America is in trouble because it once had G-d's blessing and has since lost it.
But Daryl's article on a near death experience is a fine opportunity to explain why there is more to the universe than what the boys in white coats can measure in a lab. Galia and Shulamit Gad fit into this paradigm: there is more to the universe that what the boys in white lab coats can measure.
89 - Dr Dreadful
Ruvy, first of all, any scientific study is compromised if the participants are motivated in the direction of any of the dependent variables. Your management analogy is meaningless. The researchers' purpose was not to encourage the mentally-disabled children (that is the caregivers' job, not theirs), but to determine if FC had any merit. That is a valid object of study into any new or unproven treatment.
Secondly, whose word have we got, other than Ms Crossley's (relayed and possibly misquoted via Mrs Gad), that the researchers were hostile to FC?
Thirdly, Shulamit singled out one study. According to Skepdic, there have been more than thirty.
90 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
DD,
As you well know, life is not a lab experiment. Which is perhaps the point. If judges are willing to accept FC testimony in some jurisdictions, that tells me a lot more than all the studies in the world.
I will grant you that FC is still controversial. It ultimately draws on concepts that are not at all proven, and scientists are a conservative lot, only going with what their concepts tell them. That is fair.
The point is that Galia's advice has worked in Shulamit Gad's life, and that Galia has been a positive influence to a degree in that family. The other point is that Shulamit Gad, a secular Jew with no education in Torah, Tana"kh, Gemara, Zohar or the works of our sages and scholars, found in her autistic daughter a fount of wisdom all drawn from those sources - and that she is not the only one who has done so. Other autistic children have surfaced who also draw upon these sources as well and attempt predictions - which they oughtn't do. So, in reading them, I'm far more cautious.
91 - Mary Ann Harrington
As a person who has worked with facilitated communication for many years, I find Galia's mother's account plausible. Please check out my articles for more stories and information on the subject. It does appear that many individuals with severe autism are not fully integrated in their body. This lack of integration provides a unique
perspective. It as if they are operating between two worlds.
Please check out my anecdotes and articles. Comments are appreciated.
92 - zingzing
"It as if they are operating between two worlds."
yeah, but one of those worlds isn't godland.
93 - batdancer
i figure that you researched the topic - and then proceeded to write this as a nice piece of fiction!