Do you believe in life after life?

I disagree. Non-newtonian physics is what explained the cathode-ray tube, produced lasers, and is what primarily drives the field of electronics. It took us a century to realise not even a fraction of the potential of Einstein's gift. Sure, when performing calculations we dont (and often lack the mathematical knowledge to) use relativity and quantum mechanics, but the practical things that have resulted from it are too great in number to count.

The applications of string theory are hard to envision now, but Im sure Einstein's contemporaries thought the same about relativity.
==Chris

While I don't feel like verifying what you stated, I'm talking about movement, not electrodynamics
SL uses newtonian physics, most games do, and a lot of them use even simpler models. In practice, you generally don't need to account for the effect of velocity on time and mass.

Whenever belief in god is called "insurance" the following quote is required.



And can Pascal beat Bob's offer of: eternal salvation or TRIPLE your money back?

I've been having trouble sleeping with dreams ever since as well. The difference most of my dreams involve shooting people in my unit Sergeant First Class and above in the head, chopping their heads off, or stabbing them till they don't breath anymore. We had quite a bit of problems with our leadership, and though the dreams aren't as frequent as they were when I was in, they continue even now a year after I got out. I've also seen dead people on the way to sleep that disappear quick, and some of them are people I know didn't die. I wouldn't want to put too much stock in the images before I go to sleep and when I wake up. I ironically would never kill a person like I do in my dreams, and from seeing living people dead in front of me, I've come to the conclusion the images I see are just my unconcious. I'm just glad they can no longer extend my contract. If they did call me back, I'm not sure what I would become, but it wouldn't be pretty in the end. Hopefully it will all go away with time.

Scientist Claims Proof Of Afterlife
Research Finds Accuracy Of Mediums Channeling Dead People
UPDATED: 10:19 AM EST March 4, 2004

From: http://www.newsnet5.com/news/2893543/detail.html

CLEVELAND -- What happens after we die -- do we continue on or is this life the end?

Many of us hope there is an afterlife, and now some Arizona scientists say they have proof through their afterlife experiments.

There are many people who say they have died and come back to life. They claim to have experienced an afterlife, even if for only a short time.

Scientists at The University of Arizona have done extensive research, and say that they have the proof that when we die we continue to live beyond our physical bodies.

"Almost anyone who sees the data says there's something real here," said one of the researchers.

Allison Dubois is a spiritual medium, or someone thought to be able to communicate with the dead.

Christine Vettore was brought in for a reading with Dubois, who attempted to contact Vettore's dead relatives.

"I'm hopeful that there's an afterlife so I can see everybody I've lost already," said Vettore.

It doesn't take long -- within seconds, Dubois says Vettore's daughter is coming through.

It is a gift Dubois says she's had her whole life, but it comes with a lot of criticism.

"I think there are some people that are Charlatans, and with any profession there's going to be some bad apples, so I mean that just goes with the territory, so the ones that are accurate and are legitimate just have to prove themselves," said Dubois.

This reading is part of a science experiment -- Dr. Gary Schwartz, of the University of Arizona, is observing.

The Harvard-trained doctor looked for what he calls hits and misses, or the accuracy of the reading.

He's building on his hypothesis that there is life after death, and that mediums can talk to those who have died. After Vettore's daughter is contacted, Dubois contacted Vettore's brother and mother. She is able nail facts, giving details about the relations that she could not have known beforehand.

For instance, Dubois tells Vettore that her mother knows there's a carrot cake and a bowl of peanuts in her house.

"None of those things do I ever have in my house. I have those things in my house this month, carrot cake and peanuts, so that was weird," said Vettore.

The accuracy is amazing to Vettore, because she had never met or talked to Dubois before. She said Dubois was accurate in 80 to 90 percent of everything she said.

Skeptics say that Dubois is just guessing, but Schwartz says it is impossible for someone to guess and be that accurate.

For the past seven years, he has been testing mediums and other things tied to death, using science to explain what happens when we leave our physical bodies.

"Saying that this is against the grain with academia sort of puts it mildly," said Schwartz.

Schwartz has done multiple experiments under very controlled conditions. One of the most intriguing studies included five of the most respected mediums in the world, hooked up to monitors and computers.

In the experiment, 10 people were read by the five mediums. In lab conditions, a medium sat down with an individual and there would be a divider between them.

When that medium finished, the next would come in, until all five mediums had given a reading for the individual.

Schwartz and his staff would then compare the readings. They were astonished to find that in most cases, the mediums would bring through the same people and the same messages, with an 80-90 percent accuracy rate.

"There are so many people that are going to try to find holes in what we've done … there is not a hole to find when we agree, or get a final protocol done," said Schwartz.

The scientists call their findings survival of consciousness -- meaning our physical bodies die, but we continue on.

The research continues with studies that include near-death survivors.

Schwartz says near-death experience research completely dovetails and supports what's coming from the mediums.

He says he will continue his research, and that the data doesn't lie.

"When you look at the totality of the data from our laboratory, the simplest explanation is actually that survival of consciousness is real," said Schwartz.

http://www.meta-religion.com/Paranormale/Afterlife/scientist_claims_proof.htm

THe earth will re-use our bodyily nutrients.. unless your cremated.. then your foucked!

Wow, is that ever a mess of supposition.

Personally I'd hope not to be able to contact folks such as my grandfather, and that he's actually happily being someone's little kid by now.

Schwartz is a noted quack and is very good at self promotion to a media that is rather fond of selling wish fullfilment.

I'd offer up the de-bunking, but it would likely just devolve into "is not", "is too", so I recommend you just believe as you wish.

Gary Schwartz's Subjective Evaluation of Mediums
Veritas or Wishful Thinking?

How Not to Test Mediums

Yes, I could post many who are experts in this study of life after death, but my guess is they would all be considered quacks by some. Although I find it poor logic to define the author rather than the actual information presented. In other words, I think it's better to shoot down the data than it is to shoot down the author. It's a logical fallacy to ignore data because of who the messenger is.

Feel free to post the repeatable experiments he has performed so that we can all observe the phenomenon that proves his hypothesis. That's the only way the data will not be ignored, in this case.

See the links posted above

An "expert" in a field is more than mere self-declaration and a doctorate. For example, did you know that I'm the world's foremost authority on the Tooth Fairy; oops, sorry, Dr. Schartz beat me to that.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and science requires that others be able to examine your data; Schwartz has explicitly declined to provide either.

Pile as many letters after your name as you like, but if you claim to have made a perpetual motion machine and don't allow others to examine it, you are still a quack. This in not strictly a matter of opinion and your wishing otherwise doesn't make it so.

But do believe in an afterlife if you wish; I wouldn't dream of disabusing you of that belief. Claim that there is scientific support for it though, and I will call you on it.

Behold the power of cold reading!

Can you show me where Schwartz has explicitly declined to provide anything to do with his experiments or studies? The news article I pasted didn't say anything about such a charge.

hehe I recently saw a rerun of a South Park episode that did a good job of explaining the "phenomenon"




http://www.popmatters.com/tv/reviews/s/south-park-season-6-dvd.shtml

Which implies that you've not bothered to read Zuzu's nor Chip's links, so to further the futility, I'll add yet another article from JREF that says in part:Or, if that isn't sufficient here is another article that more completely explores Schwartz's brand of snake oil or, for your reading pleasure about forty more, on the subject of Gary Schwartz.

Are you actually interested in exploring the possibility that this guy is making it up, or would you prefer to just read one article, which is little more than a Schwartz press release, and have your beliefs unchallenged? I'm totally cool with the latter, but if so, please stop asking for - and ignoring - examinations of your lead article.

haha, I remember that episode. It rocked!

I asked to see where you get the idea Dr. Schwartz was trying to hide his findings or data leading to his conclusions. Did one of those links suggest the Doctor wasn't willing to open up his experimentation to scrutiny? What you posted here wasn't an unwillingness to allow others access. The article I posted from shows he opened all data to the media and other scientists for review. If one of the posts from others make the point, could you paste the actual texts here, not a link. I don't have the time to read every page of every link, I wish I did TY

Der.

Oh, right.... Nevermind. Carry on.

Chance, I had removed you from my ignore list in hopes of seeing just one post from you that wasn't rude and condescending. The first post is this. Oh well, assume I won't be seeing your posts in the future. Reply to my posts if you will, don't assume there will be a reply. No hard feelings. Bye now.....

What is even stranger than the proof of life after death is the fact that the word "gullible" hasn't been printed in any dictionary since 1978.

OMG I just looked on dictionary.com and you're right! I wonder why they took it out?

It all started during the McCarthy era. Many newspapers initially made accusations that they and the public were "gullible" for believing that the communist infiltration of american society was as widespread as purported. Very quickly anyone using the word came under suspicion. The next year most publishing companies pulled the word from their abridged editions, especially those intended for use by schoolchildren. In the following years most publishers removed the word from their unabriged dictionaries as well. The one holdout was theOxford English Dictionary, who eventaully dropped the word in 1978, since no one else was including it.
Write to you favorite dictionary publishers today and demand that the word be reinstated. The cold war is long over and there is no good reason for this anymore.