--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" <fintlewoodlewix@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" <fintlewoodlewix@> > > wrote: > > > Terrible last paragraph, gives the game away. > > > > Well, no, the studies do *suggest* this. They just don't > > do anything more than suggest. > > They suggest it only if you don't want to look at more mundane > explanations.
They suggest it (life after death) even if you do. It's one possibility. To stop searching once a cherished belief > has been apparently confirmed would be a mistake here. The author's belief hasn't been confirmed, not even apparently, and he acknowledges this. Xeno and Susan seem to want to write the book off because the author is biased without looking at his documentation. That's an even bigger mistake, IMHO. Xeno's "more reputable sources" may be the very ones the author cites in support of his belief. As I say > around a third of people who have the dead relatives component > also meet live ones, which means it's a crock - at least as far > as being some sort of "real" experience goes. I'm not sure we can say this. We don't know enough about it. Could be some people have "real" experiences mixed with fanciful ones. Or maybe in some cases the nonmaterial component of live relatives' minds are drawn to the person who is in extremis. But such speculation is useless at this point. > But it's a fascinating thing alright. > > > Again, if the studies can successfully challenge > > materialism, that's a game-changer in and of itself. What I wrote immediately above is what I'm interested in focusing on at this point. I'm concerned lest the iffiness of the life-after-death connection be used as an excuse to dismiss the challenge entirely. > > > All there is is the stuff of physics. If it doesn't fit in > > > with that, where is it? > > > > Your first sentence is the very premise that's being > > called in question. A better way to phrase what you're > > asking would be, "If the stuff of physics isn't all there > > is, where is the stuff that isn't physics?" That's a > > perfectly legitimate question, but let's see if it needs > > to be asked first. > > Obviously, but suggestions of eternal life *are* asking the > question. So would a fundamental challenge to materialism be asking the question, eternal-life possibilities aside. But we aren't even sure yet whether the challenge to materialism can hold up. So it's premature. If there is a transcendent realm it's going to > have to interact with our own for this stuff to be objective, > therefore it will be measurable. Again, this is the case even without considering whether there are implications for life after death. And again, we don't know yet whether there's any need to look for something measurable. I just think it's counterproductive to get ahead of ourselves. Let's take it one step at a time.
