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Permalink Reply by Tarquin St John Sh'gn'sty on May 16, 2010 at 11:48pm

"Many people think this is a god experience. How can we refute this? "

It's not up to us to refute anything. The burden of proof remains with the ones making the claim.It's up to them to provide evidence,rather than supposition and speculation masquerading as evidence.

The assertion that near death experiences even imply(suggest),let alone infer (conclude) proof of survival after death falls under the category of argument from ignorance. Specifically argument from incredulity IE; "I lack the knowledge, intelligence or imagination to think of anything else therefore God did it.

That many people believe a thing is irrelevant as an argument.It's another logical fallacy, 'argumentum ad populum'.('appeal to the people' aka argument by consensus and argument by numbers)

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Permalink Reply by Marshall on May 16, 2010 at 11:35pm

I appreciated the fact that the Captain made no mention of god, which he almost certainly would have were he a christian. When asked about NDEs he asserted that they don't exist (or he's needs to change the way he's living his life).

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Permalink Reply by Tom Begasse on May 18, 2010 at 5:49am

I agree with you there and am glad he didn't make a mention of a god.

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Permalink Reply by Adia Lynette on May 17, 2010 at 6:49pm

I don't bother to use logical arguments against emotional claims. It never comes to anything.

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Permalink Reply by ichabod wurkston on May 17, 2010 at 9:56pm

There was an experiment using the centrifugal force simulators that are used for simulating the g-force of high speed travel in jets. In the experiment they made hundreds of pilots black out...thier description of peacefulness, white light etc was identical to NDE.

"I fell asleeep and had a weird dream...GOd must be real!" Niether does lack of such dream make any implication towards the existance of GOD.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Thompson on May 18, 2010 at 5:54am

What the "mind" experiences as it is dying may sound interesting but for the purposes of acting as a witness in God's trial I don't give it much credence.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Moore on June 5, 2010 at 7:43pm

I am very disappointed that John King didn't ask probing questions about the existence of "God".

Why? The issue is rather irrelevant to the purpose of Captain Mantz being interviewed: advocacy of the provision of psychological services for combat personnel. Sure, the story is wrapped up in the 'dead for fifteen minutes' angle — which is amazing in itself — but if that is what allows Captain Mantz to better enable his advocacy, well and good.

It is clear in this interview that there is no "God". The evidence contradicting the existence of "God" is right here!

No. It is evidence that he did not experience an 'after-life' during the fifteen minutes of his death. Nothing more, nothing less. Though it is common to conflate the two claims — that there is an after-life and that there is a god — it is a mistake to do so. Each claim requires its own evidence. Evidence for one claim may support the other claim, but it is not necessarily so that it will.

Also, the experience of Captain Mantz is one data point, and one data point does not support or refute a claim.

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