There is an interesting dance that goes on between religious ideas and stuff that’s in the news. The one I’m thinking about is the near death experience (NDE). There was a big story about one in 2012.
This was the story of a neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander, who was in a comma, came out of it and reported having a blissful heavenly experience. The story was front page on Newsweek and his book generated much discussion.
One problem with the concept of NDE is that the person always comes back to do a book tour. He did not die. Just how dead he/she was, compared to being really dead, is unknown.
Another part of all these stories in the U. S. is often the person, like Dr. Alexander, starts going to a Christian church. But, the NDE is not Christian, anthropologists have recorded the same experience from religions and cultures all over the world.
That the NDE reported by people is universal across the world raises two possibilities. One is there is but one religion and the heaven that goes with it is universal. The other is the experience is a human phenomenon unrelated to religion.
This latter possibility may provide an insight into where the Biblical concept of heaven came from. That would be from humans telling their families and tribes about their NDE experiences for 200,000 years. Those stories, then, found their way into the Bible as the heaven we hear about today.
Maybe heaven started down here instead of up there.
FaceBook, Red River Freethinkers.
” between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.” (Luke 16:26) Only in true death can we cross over into the next life. I would agree that these NDE are either a deception (the mind playing tricks) or in some cases fraudulent.
Michael 2:10 re Luke 16:26
I had never heard it approached your way. Thanks, Michael.
NDE ‘visions’ may be our expectations of what we will see based on our culture and experiences…… or possibly a select group of neurons firing as be begin to close down. I don’t recall ever reading/hearing/etc. about NDE in dementia patients or others with severe brain damage, for obvious reasons, but still you would expect to hear of at least a handful of cases.
Jon: “Did Heaven Come From Down Here?”
Yes. Absolutely. Obamba just masterminded avoidance of the fiscal cliff. $1 in spending cut to every $41 in tax increase to achieve $4 trillion of additional debt. Absolutely brilliant. We have heaven.
…..until S&P and Moodys weigh in. We may also be able to see hell.
Henry “until S&P and Moodys weigh in. We may also be able to see hell.”
The Dow has gone up every year for the last four years. One thing we can predict about the stock market, bond market and the economy. They will go up and down.
The market always goes up in the long run. Except, of course, when it goes down. It went down in 1929 and didn’t come back until 1954. The dislocations snd excesses are much greater this time around but the Fed just keeps proping the whole thing up with bailouts and ZIRP (zero interest rate policy). And the worlds currencies are totally debased from gols. Where we are noe we have never been. When it goes it may be total collapse and chaos. No wonder the government has purchased 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition and wants to disarm the public. These are perilous times.
Jon, no doubt this will push equities up…..we are embracing inflation and short term stability has been established. The limit will occur when we become an unsafe bet for investing money, and we are forced to print even money (than we currently are) as a result. That is when hyperinflation hits, and that will eventually kill equities after a period of time. All this is predictable. Some aspects of this predictable economic death spiral have historically occurred before. One particular Europeon country in the early 20th century had people with wheelbarrows full of cash buying a loaf of bread.
A simpler explanation is that last night, the borrowed can got kicked further down the road. Everyone should pat themselves on the back and feel good about themselves. We can continue our lust of the eye, our lust of the flesh, and our pride of life.
Henry, Michael It’s alway possible you are both right. It’s alway possible you are both wrong. I’m betting you are wrong about an economic death spiral and hyperinflation.
I’m not in the economic prediction business, even economists who get paid to predict really cannot predict human behavior and, thus, cannot predict the future with much certainty. My amature observations about the economy are these:
1. Our currency will become a relatively unimportant one in the world when other countries don’t want to hold it. That depends, not only our our own fiscal house, but on other countries’ fiscal houses. Ours has held up against the others pretty well so far.
2. I don’t think our fed. government spending is a big problem. What is a bigger problem is that own society in total consumes more than it produces. The adjustment to this is being made by the rich saving more and the poor going more into debt. I don’t know exactly what the solution is to this problem.
Jon: “That depends, not only our our own fiscal house, but on other countries’ fiscal houses.”
True. If the other nation’s economic sins are greater, then we hold the upper hand in currency.
Jon: “I don’t know exactly what the solution is to this problem.”
That particular problem hasn’t festered enough to overcome the political correctness in doing what then has to be done. The entitlement programs instituted by the democrats (grate society/ss) have been truly ingenius for getting dems re-elected. These same programs have become an albatross hung around the young’s neck. The dems have the very easy position of accusing any reformer of these entitlements of “pushing grandma down the stairs in her wheelchair.” They’ve wiggled themselves into a very ingenius position that is making this a not-so-great society.
America’s great entreprenuers that have gone from rags to riches through saving and investing are becoming a story that is difficult to repeat in today’s society. AN example. Rockerfeller saving every penny to accumulate enough wealth to invest and create more wealth, while providing products people can use. Can that happen today? Very rarely. Too much bureacracy and rules and loopholes for the entrenched “old money”. “Old money” likes rules and bureacracy. It maintains their status. Tax them more? They know how to keep their money (government gets less) in that and they like that too.
Henry 11:19 Rockerfeller saving every penny to accumulate…wealth.”
My understanding is he got rich buy starving out every competitor and using the resulting monopoly for his benefit. Maybe we’re talking about different Rockerfellers.
If I could have bought my gasoline 3 times cheaper from Rocky than the ones being “starved out”, I would have.
Henry 11:00 “The dems…wiggled themselves into a very ingenius position…”
It is true Dems use taxing the rich to give to the not rich for their political advantage. I my own view, Reps. don’t have much of a fail safe program for the poor. That is, if you assume there will be poor people, and it seems a good assumption, and the public wants the government to do something about them, what is it Republicans have to offer? I know, I know, they have theoretical ideas, lower taxes and there won’t be any more poor people.
I think Republicans would serve the great good more by stating openly just how much social security, medical care, etc. people need. That is, the need many well be less than we now have. That would provide a rational discussion and give the public confidence the Party had in mind something they intended to do. Instead, the Party (some of them) talk of eliminating programs, etc.,
Poor farms.
I also agree with accountant, farmer, democrat Collin Peterson who was the headline on the front page today. He voted “no”.
Henry 1:01 “I agree with accountant, farmer..Collin Peterson.” He’s a CPA, I’m sure he’s never been a farmer, except that he grew up on a farm. My favorite memory with him is riding in a parade. He said, “Jon, that’s brilliant, complimenting people on their dogs. I’m going to start doing that.” He’s probably still in office because I taught him, “Beautiful dog!”
Collin grew up on a farm near Baker. He is technically a farmer involved in the farm program according to one database.
One can never go wrong giving someone else praise about their dog. There are some people that value their dog more than their kid.
Henry 3:09 Maybe Collin or his family inherited, or bought, some farmland.
That could be the situation. He seems pretty well grounded in ag.