Mega-thread for help with rebuttals against skeptical talking points

Y'know, for all the time it sounds like you spend stressing about your inevitable, unavoidable death, you also sound like you're letting your life pass you by. Do you really want to spend your life, whether its one or many, doing little more than worrying about how much time you have left to spend worrying about it? Soon enough you won't have any time left to do much of anything, so you might as well just go eat some ice cream or something.

This is actually very difficult for those are concerned about it.  If you were to take the time to imagine that the inevitable and total end of your existence is now, as it inevitably will be one day, you might catch a glimpse of the problem.   It's like not being able to change what you believe, even if other people think it's crazy.

Omni, we've discussed this many times before. Amongst some of the things I don't understand is...why are you worried about what some guy.. somewhere on the net thinks about the A, B or C of NDE's ? What does it matter ?

I don't mind you asking questions (not that I have the answers particularly) but you do keep setting up the same skittles over and over again. It seems evident that nothing is going to satisfy you. That's fine, so if that's the case, isn't it better to take a sceptical approach ? What you seem to be looking for is some kind of 'cast iron' guarantee that there is life after death and that survival is true. I believe it is true but there isn't yet sufficient evidence to justify that, only very persuasive evidence that it most likely is.   

There is no explanation for the Near death experience and certainly not DMT, not even in the ball park as nbtruthman has pointed out. That's a fact. 

If anyone states that they have an explanation, then they are just talking rubbish. We just have to wait until the evidence advances. We also (in the spirit of intellectual honesty) have to accept the possibility (at least) that what appears to be glittering like gold, isn't actually gold. 

But my personal opinion is that it hardly looks likely now, as 45 years have gone by without an explanation.

There's only one path toward absolute confidence, and that is either confirmation of one's own past life memories or communication with the dead.

If someone's true concern really is their fear of death, the course is clear. At least the work in disciplining one's mind for such pursuits is more productive than watching hours upon hours of junk content made by pseudo-skeptic amateurs.

This is actually very difficult for those are concerned about it.  If you were to take the time to imagine that the inevitable and total end of your existence is now, as it inevitably will be one day, you might catch a glimpse of the problem.   It's like not being able to change what you believe, even if other people think it's crazy.

I tend to change my opinions based on logic and evidence and have done so several times in the past. That being said I do know the difference between consciously knowing something to be true but not being able to make it a visceral feeling as the subconscious takes longer to get to that point. And since the subconscious has a lot more torque for controlling muscles and psi effects it makes it kind of annoying. But once I know something logically I certainly put in the time and effort to get my subconscious in line with that regardless of my feelings. It's not really the same as a fear, its more of fine tuning a skill to get a specific result, so I guess its not the same thing. I don't have a problem with death or non existence personally, beyond I guess that it would be annoying to have had only one incredibly limited life in an arbitrarily limited environment. I don't think its any better or worse than living forever which would seem equally pointless. So I might as well spend my time and effort rebelling against that and trying to change reality while enjoying myself rather than worry about how much time reality says that I have to deal with it. I will either succeed and change the whole system, or fail and die like I would've had I taken any other path.

Given the current lockdown conditions at the time of typing this, I don't have much of a choice other than doing work, getting out occasionally, trying to distract myself etc. 

If you're telling me to just 'get over it' then I suggest you read my earliest posts to understand why I can't do that, at least not yet.

Yeah I know you have a fear of death but its just something to think about, especially with all the other stuff going on. Also the icecream thing wasn't literal.

Given the current lockdown conditions at the time of typing this, I don't have much of a choice other than doing work, getting out occasionally, trying to distract myself etc. 

If you're telling me to just 'get over it' then I suggest you read my earliest posts to understand why I can't do that, at least not yet.

How about NOT trying to distract yourself.

For example, if you had just one minute left to live, what would you do with those 60 seconds? How about ten minutes? What would you do if you had just ten minutes left, that was your whole lifetime, just ten minutes. How would you spend that time?

In real-life situations, people usually turn to one another, perhaps to tell someone how much you love them. This is real - it happens. People faced with a few moments to live do something precious and valuable. Figure out what is valuable to you.

This article was posted during a Zoom call I attended (hosted by Seeking I) when Surviving Death was mentioned. This guy apparently has background experience in neuroscience:

https://psi-fi-channel.medium.com/beauty...bfabd4d9bf

He refutes the specific claims made by Greyson and Fenwick at times:




I'm fairly certain the 'neurotransmitters' argument has been addressed before by both of them, and it's likely the 'brain activity after cardiac arrest' is referring to one of those sensationalised studies from the past few years. Additionally, as Dr Greyson has pointed out, these aren't 'storms' of activity. He seems to be conflating the Borjigin study results as well. But as you can see, he's more open-minded than the usual skeptic. During the Zoom call, he claims to have spoke with them and says he's not convinced they 'are fully aware of the neuropharmacological details (Dean et al, 2019 - for recent endogenous DMT rodent study)'. Parnia has also addressed this AFAIK. Needless to say, he didn't respond to me after I explained this to him.

Am I missing something here?

Honestly, this article is actually very good. It's even handed and sympathetic to both sides, he definitely doesn't say anything like he's proved them to be material near the end. To actual stuff, hypoxia is a sketchy explanation because blood taken from NDErs shows they can have MORE oxygen in their blood sometimes. Also the fact they happen in non cardiac arrest scenarios, meaning the person has got regular oxygen levels. Always remember that, we just like cardiac arrest because it's easier to prove they are genuine when you're dead. For the surge in the rat brain, it's not yet proven that happens in humans, whether or not it could even account for an NDE, if it happens for people NOT in Cardiac arrest, and as far as I know it is eliminated if the person has been put under via drugs, but NDEs still happen. And of course, DMT is very different than NDEs. Also some things about his medium article as well is that we have time markers during NDEs so we know roughly when they happen, thanks to perceptions.

Honestly I wouldn't be suprised if Greyson and especially Fenwick didn't know absolutely everything in the most recent dying literature, Greyson cause he might have other shit to do and Fenwick cause he's a bloody fossil. Though I feel like across the breath of researchers we have an idea of what's going on, and like we discussed the other day with that DMT study and the responses, it doesn't lead to much.

Stop stressin dude, I know it's hard I was there too. It'll get better, you'll grow out of it.