Though such concept did have more wisdom (disregarding for a moment other areas which have been more "primitive" then) - because, really, that's what happens; that's all we can hope for.
Our individuality does cease...but we live on in what we had left after ourselves, in the rest of humanity (btw, it happens to greater and greater extent with tech progress...and it will continue gradual increase of scope IMHO, in the rough direction of so called "mind uploading" (probably never attaining it in the form it is imagined though, it would be largely useless, pointless and wastefull))
Catholicism and orthodox certainly...catholicism itself forms majority of christianity, with orthodox that's even larger part.
Of course it's presented as "praying through ancestors to god; maybe they can intervene on our behalf" in the effort of trying to appear monotheistic. But that's really irrelevant, the most important thing is that current official practise shows that the dead are expected to exist now. Oh, and at least in my country there's quite popular practice of performing masses for souls which might be suffering in the purgatory.
Those are not merely some current semi-official practices of majority of christianity; they show shift which was occuring over many centuries, and is a reflection of what faithfull actually think and expect... This is where the heart and mind of religion is, not in stated policies; which can and often do change.
News flash: one of the nicest and most interesting things about our brain is it's apparent capacity for feedback loops and being the source of it's own input. But those are still states of natural reality.
Anyway, when it comes to out of body experiences - since they deal with reality, there was actually an experiment (this one proper metodology, not just about writing down stories and comparing them) lasting many years in some number of ER operating rooms (where inevitably some number of such experiences were reported). But with a little practical joke - strange geometric shapes or symbols placed on top of equipment, where neither patients nor medical staff could see them...well, unless patient would be in "true" OBE (typical reported floting position would make seing the practical joke inevitable, also because those things simply didn't belong there / looked weird)
So...even though some OBE were apparently described in impressive detail...guess how many mentioned anything about the practical joke.
Ehhh...you really want so much to forget that, by altering slightly brain chemistry, you alter the consciousness? You can easily suspend it, too...
Furthermore, religious types have much more explaining to do when it comes to the issue of "proving that something exists". Namely - why they almost universally reject 99+% of faiths, of gods, of religious texts? Why they pick this one? How come it's almost universally one which was shared by their caretakers? Think about it...people almost universally choose their faith on the basis of "because my parents did it", that's the single determining factor in almost all cases.
Thing is - not many "spattered bodies horror scenes" have much to do with actual "gore", certainly not those which become semi-popular. It's something a bit different, I think, some kind of weird fascination with blood, which I'm not sure from where it's coming from......not long time ago I cut my hand quite deeply on a can. Cleanly too, I didn't really notice it untill large part of my hand was covered in blood, with it dipping happily to the ground. Couldn't do much about it, at least not properly, for a few minutes - so eventually most of my hand was covered in blood. And then it hit me...it actually looked rather aestheticly pleasing; however little sense such perception has.
But grinded innards & bones mixed with dirt? No, no such effect.
Alternativelly it's also, like you seem to suggest, for the rush. With some point of balance...we don't really like to be reminded of our own mortality...bit we like the rush of adrenaline now and then.
No problem; but, funny thing, look at the moderation of that post of mine above - seems somebody indeed likes to cling to old myths and doesn't like what was pretty much, well...a citation;p
Or those experiences just seem to last during a time when there was a flatline.
Similarly how memories of dreams are widely distorted, how people often think time flows differently in them. But when it was checked (it's relativelly easy when you can do semi-lucid dream), it turned out the flow of time is basically the same (and yes, the subjects during such experiments also consistently claimed "it seemed so long")
Observation of events occuring doing NDE & OBE was actually quite conclusivelly shown to be BS (not that it isn't experienced - just not the way it is described). Remember, it talks specifically about observing reality, so it can be tested, and was.
There was an experiment going on for a long time in few ER units - basically weird signs, symbols, etc. placed on top of ER room equipment ("furniture", if you like). And yes, inevitably some number of OBE cases showed up over the years. Even though most of them involved observation from high point of view, "above" the action (where symbols would be clearly visible and very noticeable as "this doesn't fit here"), not even one story of OBE included any mention of them.
Like NDE, OBE is just a very abnormal state of conciousness, perceiving reality in a weird way. Not an unpleasant one (I think I experienced at least one, self-induced in a way...), but also nothing supernatural.
And brain certainly can piece together a compelling story from glimpses of information - look at the way you perceive & remember dreams, how memories work, how ridiculously unreliable witness testimony was sometimes shown to be.
Nice to see you know it's wrong (again, we're only talking about NDEs being potentially a part of it, and certainly not without lots of clear analogies, as you claimed; they hardly begin to explore all alternative states of mind; heck, I should know, having had temporal lobe epilepsy (and yes, almost a textbook example of related traits)) with such a certainity...oh, w8, you were trying to say something about methological integrity, it seems.
And yes, there's certainly a lot of cross-contamination of ideas of course. You seem to agree it's concievable that imagery from NDEs might play a notable part in kickstarting some of them. Especially since, what you also suggest, it's possible that NDEs themselves are partly influenced by expectations (you can influence dreams or "normal" halucinations after all, even by your mood or surroundings...)
I wouldn't expect "DE instead of NDE" in the past to be a total showstopper. Remember that, in some small part of critically wounded, partly snapping out of some shock for a few hours or even minutes would be sometimes enough to tell a story.
(1) Yes, I didn't say that's the only factor; but it's enough for NDEs to be simply compatible, as one of possible influences, to negate the opinion of parent poster that NDE imagery is not present at all in religions ("In non of them is the "white light that is God" mentioned (to my knowledge)... More damning to the idea, though, is simply that these depictions are not represented in any of the religions." - my response was about this, not that it "certainly" influenced all of them as you seems to have perceived it; just prevalence)
(2) Again, as above. Even if, as you almost noticed (in case of heaven it's actually pretty clear, contrary to what you say; at least in expectations of the vast majority of faithfull, and this is what should be discussed in such cases anyway), there are version of afterlife (limbo-like) which while not really "bad" per se also certainly can't really give you your relatives back...but they certainly aren't winning.
(3) But that, again, doesn't change it's very often a similar symbolism to experiences from NDEs
What's to elaborate? Christianity was initially very clearly and strictly about resurrection of the body (heck, even proper burial was very to that end important). With issue of what happens in the meantime hotly debated.
It formally still is about resurrection, but...just look around you (well, maybe not today;P ). In conciousness of the faithfull it's about going to heaven or purgatory or hell after death. And the dead are watching us, can hear our prayers and help us out, and so on...they don't need resurrection, their eternal life is perceived as already happening.
Of course, I'm not in disagreement with that. They probably do have some experiences pretty analogous to our vision (which is nonetheless not vision by definition). But presenting it as "always blind, and yet then was able to see" is misleading.
For that matter, I can't honestly describe what I experience in dreams as "seeing", even if during the dream I'm convinced it is one.
Put it another way: I'm certain many (most? all?) people had erotic dreams before their first sexual experiences. How "correct" were those dreams, hm?
Familiarity of this experience to what people like to think of heaven doesn't lead you to any probable guesses as to the validity of the heaven concept?
Hm, and notice that there are also few which originally had the concept of "distant reward" but, over the centuries, gradually shifted to "instant gratification". Most notably, Christianity.
Which also could be influenced, I suppose, by the "background" societal knowledge of such experiences (I imagine Europe was a good place for them - quite a brutal continent, really; and with a higher chance of somebody hearing out the description of NDE and passing it further)
Nokia sells around half a billion phones annualy, huge part of those are digital media players whether you like it or not. And Apple sold only 220 million iPods, total.
People have feature phones AND an iPod. They don't play music on their feature phone....in the market you're familiar with! (look at how the fabulous marketshare numbers in the Wikipedia article above talk about US market only...that's not a coincidence)
But, for example, in my place...I suspect I could count on fingers of one hand the number of times I've seen an iPod (for the record - not counting my iPod), plus I have yet to witness an iPhone or iPod Touch outside of a shop. And my country is still supposedly quite developed one, a new member of the EU, and so on. There are certainly many "poorer" out there...
And from what I see, how a few years ago (even in my quite developed one) cheap chinese S1 mp3 players were the dominating form of consuming media on the go, now so called "feature phones" are the standard. Smartphones too, actually...but not a lot of them are iPhones.
iTunes (or music stores in general...) is similarly not so global phenomena as you were led to think...
What? You supposedly study religions and missed the prevalence of "good light"/etc., reunification with ancestors, a path and border point (remember, they can have differing forms depending on the culture) imagery?...
How then could primitive man regale his story when it would have lead to actual death while unconscious? Well, religions themself claim that all it takes is one prophet...
Slashdot Mirror
Or you just push the clutch... (on which you still had your left foot, anticipating quick upshifting to second gear)
Actually, Google seems to be exploring the possibility of tailoring their OS to a tablet... ...ChromeOS though, not Android
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/user-experience/form-factors/tablet
(but I think I remember some nafucaturers which showed Android-powered tablets at one of recent industry shows)
Though such concept did have more wisdom (disregarding for a moment other areas which have been more "primitive" then) - because, really, that's what happens; that's all we can hope for.
Our individuality does cease...but we live on in what we had left after ourselves, in the rest of humanity (btw, it happens to greater and greater extent with tech progress...and it will continue gradual increase of scope IMHO, in the rough direction of so called "mind uploading" (probably never attaining it in the form it is imagined though, it would be largely useless, pointless and wastefull))
Catholicism and orthodox certainly...catholicism itself forms majority of christianity, with orthodox that's even larger part.
Of course it's presented as "praying through ancestors to god; maybe they can intervene on our behalf" in the effort of trying to appear monotheistic. But that's really irrelevant, the most important thing is that current official practise shows that the dead are expected to exist now. Oh, and at least in my country there's quite popular practice of performing masses for souls which might be suffering in the purgatory.
Those are not merely some current semi-official practices of majority of christianity; they show shift which was occuring over many centuries, and is a reflection of what faithfull actually think and expect... This is where the heart and mind of religion is, not in stated policies; which can and often do change.
News flash: one of the nicest and most interesting things about our brain is it's apparent capacity for feedback loops and being the source of it's own input. But those are still states of natural reality.
Anyway, when it comes to out of body experiences - since they deal with reality, there was actually an experiment (this one proper metodology, not just about writing down stories and comparing them) lasting many years in some number of ER operating rooms (where inevitably some number of such experiences were reported). But with a little practical joke - strange geometric shapes or symbols placed on top of equipment, where neither patients nor medical staff could see them...well, unless patient would be in "true" OBE (typical reported floting position would make seing the practical joke inevitable, also because those things simply didn't belong there / looked weird)
So...even though some OBE were apparently described in impressive detail...guess how many mentioned anything about the practical joke.
Kill yourself.
Next challenge, please.
Ehhh...you really want so much to forget that, by altering slightly brain chemistry, you alter the consciousness? You can easily suspend it, too...
Furthermore, religious types have much more explaining to do when it comes to the issue of "proving that something exists". Namely - why they almost universally reject 99+% of faiths, of gods, of religious texts? Why they pick this one? How come it's almost universally one which was shared by their caretakers? Think about it...people almost universally choose their faith on the basis of "because my parents did it", that's the single determining factor in almost all cases.
Thing is - not many "spattered bodies horror scenes" have much to do with actual "gore", certainly not those which become semi-popular. It's something a bit different, I think, some kind of weird fascination with blood, which I'm not sure from where it's coming from... ...not long time ago I cut my hand quite deeply on a can. Cleanly too, I didn't really notice it untill large part of my hand was covered in blood, with it dipping happily to the ground. Couldn't do much about it, at least not properly, for a few minutes - so eventually most of my hand was covered in blood. And then it hit me...it actually looked rather aestheticly pleasing; however little sense such perception has.
But grinded innards & bones mixed with dirt? No, no such effect.
Alternativelly it's also, like you seem to suggest, for the rush. With some point of balance...we don't really like to be reminded of our own mortality...bit we like the rush of adrenaline now and then.
No problem; but, funny thing, look at the moderation of that post of mine above - seems somebody indeed likes to cling to old myths and doesn't like what was pretty much, well...a citation ;p
Or those experiences just seem to last during a time when there was a flatline.
Similarly how memories of dreams are widely distorted, how people often think time flows differently in them. But when it was checked (it's relativelly easy when you can do semi-lucid dream), it turned out the flow of time is basically the same (and yes, the subjects during such experiments also consistently claimed "it seemed so long")
So...where are the cases that you supposedly refer to?
Observation of events occuring doing NDE & OBE was actually quite conclusivelly shown to be BS (not that it isn't experienced - just not the way it is described). Remember, it talks specifically about observing reality, so it can be tested, and was.
There was an experiment going on for a long time in few ER units - basically weird signs, symbols, etc. placed on top of ER room equipment ("furniture", if you like). And yes, inevitably some number of OBE cases showed up over the years. Even though most of them involved observation from high point of view, "above" the action (where symbols would be clearly visible and very noticeable as "this doesn't fit here"), not even one story of OBE included any mention of them.
Like NDE, OBE is just a very abnormal state of conciousness, perceiving reality in a weird way. Not an unpleasant one (I think I experienced at least one, self-induced in a way...), but also nothing supernatural.
And brain certainly can piece together a compelling story from glimpses of information - look at the way you perceive & remember dreams, how memories work, how ridiculously unreliable witness testimony was sometimes shown to be.
Nice to see you know it's wrong (again, we're only talking about NDEs being potentially a part of it, and certainly not without lots of clear analogies, as you claimed; they hardly begin to explore all alternative states of mind; heck, I should know, having had temporal lobe epilepsy (and yes, almost a textbook example of related traits)) with such a certainity...oh, w8, you were trying to say something about methological integrity, it seems.
Winning hearts and minds.
And yes, there's certainly a lot of cross-contamination of ideas of course. You seem to agree it's concievable that imagery from NDEs might play a notable part in kickstarting some of them. Especially since, what you also suggest, it's possible that NDEs themselves are partly influenced by expectations (you can influence dreams or "normal" halucinations after all, even by your mood or surroundings...)
I wouldn't expect "DE instead of NDE" in the past to be a total showstopper. Remember that, in some small part of critically wounded, partly snapping out of some shock for a few hours or even minutes would be sometimes enough to tell a story.
I am an atheist ... a timeless eternity "somewhere else", but there was no bright light and all that, it was a dark and nasty place.
Well, no wonder you went to hell, eh? ;)
(Go ahead, google Izabel Goulart, I'll wait...Seriously. It's worth it.)
It appear to be just a random "super" model...
(1) Yes, I didn't say that's the only factor; but it's enough for NDEs to be simply compatible, as one of possible influences, to negate the opinion of parent poster that NDE imagery is not present at all in religions ("In non of them is the "white light that is God" mentioned (to my knowledge) ... More damning to the idea, though, is simply that these depictions are not represented in any of the religions." - my response was about this, not that it "certainly" influenced all of them as you seems to have perceived it; just prevalence)
(2) Again, as above. Even if, as you almost noticed (in case of heaven it's actually pretty clear, contrary to what you say; at least in expectations of the vast majority of faithfull, and this is what should be discussed in such cases anyway), there are version of afterlife (limbo-like) which while not really "bad" per se also certainly can't really give you your relatives back...but they certainly aren't winning.
(3) But that, again, doesn't change it's very often a similar symbolism to experiences from NDEs
What's to elaborate? Christianity was initially very clearly and strictly about resurrection of the body (heck, even proper burial was very to that end important). With issue of what happens in the meantime hotly debated.
It formally still is about resurrection, but...just look around you (well, maybe not today ;P ). In conciousness of the faithfull it's about going to heaven or purgatory or hell after death. And the dead are watching us, can hear our prayers and help us out, and so on...they don't need resurrection, their eternal life is perceived as already happening.
Of course, I'm not in disagreement with that. They probably do have some experiences pretty analogous to our vision (which is nonetheless not vision by definition). But presenting it as "always blind, and yet then was able to see" is misleading.
For that matter, I can't honestly describe what I experience in dreams as "seeing", even if during the dream I'm convinced it is one.
Put it another way: I'm certain many (most? all?) people had erotic dreams before their first sexual experiences. How "correct" were those dreams, hm?
Familiarity of this experience to what people like to think of heaven doesn't lead you to any probable guesses as to the validity of the heaven concept?
So you yourself equated experience of gods with other internal, subjective phenomena stemming from the functioning of our brain. Fine with me.
Well, guess I should have used the world "could" or "might"; but my lack of discipline in using EN (not a native speaker) shows its ugly head again...
But yes, I approach it at most from "this seems to be a quite plausible explanation"
Hm, and notice that there are also few which originally had the concept of "distant reward" but, over the centuries, gradually shifted to "instant gratification". Most notably, Christianity.
Which also could be influenced, I suppose, by the "background" societal knowledge of such experiences (I imagine Europe was a good place for them - quite a brutal continent, really; and with a higher chance of somebody hearing out the description of NDE and passing it further)
There you go: http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia/financials/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#Sales
Nokia sells around half a billion phones annualy, huge part of those are digital media players whether you like it or not. And Apple sold only 220 million iPods, total.
People have feature phones AND an iPod. They don't play music on their feature phone. ...in the market you're familiar with! (look at how the fabulous marketshare numbers in the Wikipedia article above talk about US market only...that's not a coincidence)
But, for example, in my place...I suspect I could count on fingers of one hand the number of times I've seen an iPod (for the record - not counting my iPod), plus I have yet to witness an iPhone or iPod Touch outside of a shop. And my country is still supposedly quite developed one, a new member of the EU, and so on. There are certainly many "poorer" out there...
And from what I see, how a few years ago (even in my quite developed one) cheap chinese S1 mp3 players were the dominating form of consuming media on the go, now so called "feature phones" are the standard. Smartphones too, actually...but not a lot of them are iPhones.
iTunes (or music stores in general...) is similarly not so global phenomena as you were led to think...
What? You supposedly study religions and missed the prevalence of "good light"/etc., reunification with ancestors, a path and border point (remember, they can have differing forms depending on the culture) imagery?...
How then could primitive man regale his story when it would have lead to actual death while unconscious?
Well, religions themself claim that all it takes is one prophet...