Is science about to prove/disprove the existence of Heaven/Hell?

[ddollevoet]

Inspired by Victor's thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=exchange&Number=2736938&Fo rum=f20&Words=zombies&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=2 736938&Search=true&where=sub&Name=&daterange=1&new erval=2&newertype=d&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev= #Post2736938) and the inability to fall asleep last night.

The thread contained the following article: (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html)

[ QUOTE ]
Boffins create zombie dogs
By Nick Buchan of NEWS.com.au
June 27, 2005

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.


US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.


The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.


But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.


Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.


However rather than sending people to sleep for years, then bringing them back to life to benefit from medical advances, the boffins would be happy to keep people in this state for just a few hours,

But even this should be enough to save lives such as battlefield casualties and victims of stabbings or gunshot wounds, who have suffered huge blood loss.

During the procedure blood is replaced with saline solution at a few degrees above zero. The dogs' body temperature drops to only 7C, compared with the usual 37C, inducing a state of hypothermia before death.

Although the animals are clinically dead, their tissues and organs are perfectly preserved.

Damaged blood vessels and tissues can then be repaired via surgery. The dogs are brought back to life by returning the blood to their bodies,giving them 100 per cent oxygen and applying electric shocks to restart their hearts.

Tests show they are perfectly normal, with no brain damage.


[/ QUOTE ]

We are a few years away from having the ability to have a human die for an undetermined amount of time and then bringing him/her back to life.

These people with be unquestionably dead, not just in suspended animation. Their brain activity will cease, not just slow down. Sure, their tissues and organs may be preserved through induced hypothermia, but the body is just a chunk of meat which is completely separate one's "soul" after death.

Tests shows that dogs can be brought back to life with no brain damage. Assume the same for humans.

What would the impact be on modern religion if everyone who died and came back said that "there was no heaven or hell, just nothingness or nonexistence"?

[ceskylev]

They would say that:

1) God didn't allow entrance to/knowledge of heaven or hell because he knew that the person would be re-animated.

and/or

2) God erased the re-animated person's memories of heaven/hell because specific knowledge of the afterlife is counter to God's divine plan.

I don't believe in an afterlife, but you'll never disprove it. And if you somehow could, people would find ways to believe anyway.

[drudman]

Any propositions about the afterlife are literally meaningless.

[Claunchy]

[ QUOTE ]
Any propositions about the afterlife are literally meaningless.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, you just swallowed AJ Ayer whole didn't ya?

[technologic]

reviving the dead seems to be -EV

[SomethingClever]

[ QUOTE ]
reviving the dead seems to be -EV

[/ QUOTE ]

POTD.

[Spaded]

Some people say that when they were clinically dead in an emergency room, they saw what they believed to be heaven. The brain releases endorphines when you are about to die, so maybe that's why they beleive that they've been to heaven.

[PairTheBoard]

Hardly anyone remembers their past lives but that doesn't stop people from believing in reincarnation.

PairTheBoard

[bholdr]

It's an intresting article and a very cool procedure (oops- a pun- not intentional), but i think you overestimate the potential religious implications. First of all, even assuming that Heaven and Hell do exist (they don't), it would be impossible for a dead person that has been revived to have any memory or knowlage of such a place, for two reasons:

A: brain activity was stopped, mo memories can be created, and

B: if H&H do/did exist, they do so outside of time as we know it, it doesn't matter if a man is dead for a minute or a milennia, their time in H or H would be completly seperate, different, and inconcievable to the waking/thinking mind.

It's all a meaingless metaphysical discussion anyway, weather you believe or not, since it's utterly, utterly unprovable and even impossible to imagine or concieve of in any meaningful way. We are actually unable to even discuss H&H in a manner that can make any rational sense or provide any direction, which is a pretty good argument for their non-exisance, IMO.

[TStoneMBD]

i think that the more interesting question would be if a large portion of the revived people reported seeing some sort of afterlife, would atheists even care? many people report supernatural things and atheists choose to either ignore them or discredit them.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
Tests shows that dogs can be brought back to life with no brain damage. Assume the same for humans.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't read the news item in question, but this statement is the crux of the matter, regarding brain damage. I have always understood that permanent irreversible brain damage results after 5 minutes of oxygen deprivation. So it would seem that unless some procedure can be undertaken within that time frame, then it cannot succeed. And as far as religious implications, it is pointless to conjecture without verification that it does in fact work.

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
i think that the more interesting question would be if a large portion of the revived people reported seeing some sort of afterlife, would atheists even care? many people report supernatural things and atheists choose to either ignore them or discredit them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Atheists generally choose to ignore or discredit such claime because, in every single case that i am aware of, the evidence pointing to a supernatural cause is far, far outweighed by the probability that a natural cause is responsible.

Even if EVERY SINGLE person reported the same experience, then it would still be almost infinetly more likely that there is some sort of cultural, genitic, or chemical memory or process at work than an actual afterlife.

[TStoneMBD]

this just proves that atheists are fooling themselves as religious believers are. both groups just view supernatural happenings from different perspectives.

[SomethingClever]

[ QUOTE ]
this just proves that atheists are fooling themselves as religious believers are. both groups just view supernatural happenings from different perspectives.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree this statement is logically sound, although I would argue most athiests are "more" rational than most religious believers.

In reality though, anyone who claims to have the answers is lying.

[drudman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Any propositions about the afterlife are literally meaningless.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, you just swallowed AJ Ayer whole didn't ya?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of all the logical positivists, his prose is the most attractive. I tend to use his quotes.

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
this just proves that atheists are fooling themselves as religious believers are. both groups just view supernatural happenings from different perspectives.

[/ QUOTE ]

WRONG! sorry, but this is totally ass-backwards... Atheists are (generally- strictly speaking, it's ratioalists that i'm really referring to) unwilling to believe something unless evidence, solid, REPEATABLE evidence, can be introduced to support that belief, while most christians are the exact opposite- they are willing to believe something on faith alone.

Many Christians simply DON'T GET that there are things that a person can do to determine the validity of any specific belief, and those tests (repeatability, logical consistancy, etc) just do not apply to religion, so the rationalist is forced to conclude, that since a thing is unprovable (as opposed to not proven), it must therefore not exist.

The main difference is that rationalism is internally consistant, while christianity (and judiasim, islam, budhism, taoism, paganism, and every single other faith-based belief system) is chock full of internal inconsistancies and illogical lines of reasoning- that is, irrational.

Thus, a rationalist cannot chose to believe in supernatural happenings if those things are unprovable. if they are simply not proven, then the logical person OUGHT (ought is a very big word) not to believe in them, but is free to reserve judgment.

[bholdr]

nope- it's not a matter of perspective at all.

[ QUOTE ]
In reality though, anyone who claims to have the answers is lying.

[/ QUOTE ]

yet, we still have to assume that we are capable of finding the answers. I believe that i have (though my beliefs can and have changed) and the answer is this: It is impossible to prove or disprove the existance of god, therefore, a reasonable person ought to select the option that they feel is most supported by available evidence, which is clearly 'no god'

[TStoneMBD]

your comments are extremely arrogant and dumb, and i am insulted just by hearing your opinion on the matter.

find a person who claims to have seen angels and therefore believes in god and tell me that this person should obviously assume that his vision is false because he cannot prove what he has seen. now find an atheist who knows this person who has seen this angel, and he knows that this person would not lie about this sort of thing. the atheist obviously just assumes that it is a hallucination because the person's vision is unprovable.

yah, sure, that is entirely rational. assume that everything is impossible until provable rather than be openminded and agnostic instead. beautiful.

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

Even if EVERY SINGLE person reported the same experience, then it would still be almost infinetly more likely that there is some sort of cultural, genitic, or chemical memory or process at work than an actual afterlife.

[/ QUOTE ]

Atheists should stop asking Christians for evidence.

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
Atheists should stop asking Christians for evidence

[/ QUOTE ]

aggreed. any thinking atheist knows the arguments that show that the existance of god is not only unproven, but unprovable.

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

The main difference is that rationalism is internally consistant, while christianity (and judiasim, islam, budhism, taoism, paganism, and every single other faith-based belief system) is chock full of internal inconsistancies and illogical lines of reasoning- that is, irrational.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is what's backwards.

[bronzepiglet]

[ QUOTE ]
Some people say that when they were clinically dead in an emergency room, they saw what they believed to be heaven. The brain releases endorphines when you are about to die, so maybe that's why they beleive that they've been to heaven.

[/ QUOTE ]

I once thought I died and saw heaven... but then I realized it was the endorphins released by a wicked bad beat.

[bholdr]

"What in god's holy name are you blathering about, sir?"
-the big lebowski

You have completly missed the point of my posts, and clearly do not have the knowlage/ education/ and/or willingness necessary to participate in this conversation...

[ QUOTE ]
find a person who claims to have seen angels and therefore believes in god and tell me that this person should obviously assume that his vision is false because he cannot prove what he has seen. now find an atheist who knows this person who has seen this angel, and he knows that this person would not lie about this sort of thing. the atheist obviously just assumes that it is a hallucination because the person's vision is unprovable.

yah, sure, that is entirely rational. assume that everything is impossible until provable rather than be openminded and agnostic instead. beautiful.

[/ QUOTE ]

WTF? are you kidding? sure, go ahead and choose whatever you want to believe. online poker is rigged, etc. c'mon, that's pathetic.

(and then go fk yourself, k-hole)

[bholdr]

you're gonna have to explain your last statement a little more, NR.

[TStoneMBD]

you were the first to start using condescending tone in this thread and as a result, not that you care, you have been added to my shitlist.

[AthenianStranger]

[ QUOTE ]
You have completly missed the point of my posts, and clearly do not have the knowlage/ education/ and/or willingness necessary to participate in this conversation...

[/ QUOTE ]

Tee-hee.

[AleoMagus]

All of this suspended animations stuff, and cryogenics is not really bringing the dead back to life.

They say 'scientifically' dead, to try to give that impression, but that really just means that they had no heartbeat, no breathing, and all the usual stuff we think of that takes place in an emergency room.

Same thing as when a patient flatlines on an operating table. Many claim to have been 'technically' dead, but were then revived, or brought back from the dead.

This is all false.

Even after all the usual criteria for death have been satisfied, many of a person's internal systems continue for some time. Cells continue with important functions, hair and skin grows, and even our nervous system continues with basic functions. All of this constitutes a broader definition we have for 'life' and will continue significantly longer than most imagine. How long these cells will continue to function and survive has a lot to do with our circulatory and respiratory system functioning properly (heartbeat and breathing). Without blood flow and a supply of oxygen, we will eventually be impossible to revive. This is why CPR works. We artificially cause blood to move and oxygen to be forced into the lungs.

The thing is, the colder a person is, the longer it takes for cells to use up existing oxygen. This is why there are stories of kids who were trapped under icy cold water for very long times and who could still be revived. It's not that they died in the first place. They simply were able to slow the death process for a much greater time because of the cold temperature.

Theoretically, if we could make a person cold enough, without having the freezing process cause too much tissue damage, we could slow this death process to the point that a person could remain in stasis for hundreds of years.

So, the point again is that these dogs, or any person who might be revived by cryogenic technology, have not really died in the first place.

To truly claim to have brought a person back from the dead. we would need to let the respiratory cycle completely use up all existing oxygen and let all important cells die. Or, even just completely disintegrate a person... then reconstruct them.

This will probably also happen one day. That or we will simply reconstruct a person's conciousness in a virtual space. This brings up a whole new philosophical debate however, about whether the reconstructed individual is the same individual at all.

Regards
Brad S

[2+2 wannabe]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
reviving the dead seems to be -EV

[/ QUOTE ]

POTD.

[/ QUOTE ]

seriously - this is awesome