That is a reflection on you, not on atheism (or theism.)

True this is a reflection upon me. But I think this is an example that, logically speaking, being an unbeliever in the afterlife as opposed to a believer has consequences on moral choices.

I regret to inform that I feel much better the way I think than to believe in the ugly and sad existential nihilism...

I agree with Beyond Saving. But let me clarify. I lent money to this person when she was in much need, she asked me directly and I accepted, knowing the risks. With the promise of payback ASAP. I took pity.

Since then my daily relationship with this person is practically nonexistent much because she avoids me and I keep other companies...

I will keep lending money to other people despite this. I believe I should help others whenever I can. Of course I do this with some reasonable assurance that I would be payed back.

However in a moral nihilist perspective I know I could have acted upon the rage and that wouldn't have any moral value. I also know I wouldn’t get into any trouble with the law by scratching the car. Maybe I wouldn't have lend the money in the first place! Again another neutral attitude in a nihilist point of view.

In theory I can imagine a nihilist killing someone for the money and living large with that stolen money, thinking he did well... since there is no fundamental right or wrong.

From a broader nihilist perspective I think one should, openly, do everything to uphold the law and good values that promote law, order and general wellbeing. Covertly, however, and individually one should do everything that makes one's life better... and anything goes... as long as you don’t get caught.

Well I hope you don't agree with me and keep being "good" atheists even in secret. 

I dunno, maybe you're a psychopath?

Seriously though, I think you just have not put thought into secular moral systems, or what the actual implications of what you are saying are.

So, a test.  If what you are saying was the case for most people, a loss of religion in society would result in an increase of crime, right?  Easy to check, what do we find?  Less religion correlates with lower crime.

People need to be moral to share a society.  If everyone went wild as soon as they weren't under scrutiny, nothing would survive, we'd never make it out of the stone age.  If being a moral person, in general, is an important concept to your self identity then you will follow your moral laws even when no-one knows but you.  If it isn't, well, then I hope you never become an atheist.  *shrug*

I'm never sure whether to be amused, insulted or horrified when people say the only thing keeping them from turning into amoral monsters is the looming threat of eternal damnation.

You should do everything to make your life better, but does harming other people make your life better? I do not believe it does in most cases. Just because you do not believe in a fundamental right and wrong does not mean you lose all empathy for fellow humans. You still feel guilty when you cause harm to someone who doesn't deserve it and sometimes even if they do deserve it. Guilt is not a particularly fun feeling to live with, so if your goal is to live a better life, avoiding feeling guilty is probably a good way to go.

Let me get this straight. You said:

But you also said:

What happened? How could you go from knowing the risks and taking pity to feeling rage for not getting paid back? Perhaps you should not "keep lending money to other people despite this."

As an aside, you should never expect payment back when you loan someone, especially friends or family, money. It makes things much simpler. You may have to be persistent in keeping the friendship, because they may feel guilty or something, but if you never expect repayment, then you can still have a relationship.

It's easy to say that the problem here is that you're a bad person, because a good person would not feel that way whether an atheist or a theist. But I think it's much simpler than that. There are two reasons I don't think this makes you a bad person: First, you had fleeting anger. Most folks have fleeting anger now and then -- it doesn't mean you really want to do something drastic. There's nothing wrong with blowing things out of proportion in your mind every once in a while, as long as you can keep yourself from acting on it. When I was younger and had less self-control, I would send mean e-mails to friends when I was mad at them. Now I know that I should wait till I cool down. It doesn't hurt to get overly mad now and again, it only hurts to act on it.

Second, and this is a more important point, I think -- you don't know how you would act if you were an atheist. When I was a Christian, I assumed that I would be a bad person if I were an atheist. I assumed that my relationship with Jesus, my prayer life, my Bible study, my fellowship with other believers, my worldview -- I thought that those things kept me from being a bad person. Ironically, the opposite has happened. When I was always praying to keep a cool head and be nice to people, etc., I usually was, but not always. Now that I'm an atheist, I'm actually nicer to people because I want to be -- I'm not just doing it for God, I'm doing it for me and for the other person. That isn't to say that I was mean *because* I was a Christian, nor that I'm nicer because I'm an atheist -- I may have just mellowed out with age. But don't assume that you would be immoral if you were an atheist. I can't speak for anyone else, but it definitely didn't work that way for me.

One other thing -- this topic gets some atheists very angry. I'm not saying that means you shouldn't discuss it, I'm just warning you that if you're ever in a situation where you don't want to anger an atheist, don't bring this up. Many people find it very insulting. I don't, because I know how you feel -- I was there once.

Don’t worry; I’m far from becoming a amoral monster. But I might have felt better yesterday if I let my anger out…

I am pleased you don’t agree with me! But, and let’s hope I don’t win this argument…

Let’s concentrate on the philosophical and ethical consequence of conscience continuation after biological death. Let’s assume there is a dualistic mind/matter reality and that we have a very intrinsic loving bond to each other that we aren’t normally aware of. I’m referring to the reports of people who have undergone a near death experience. Because this is what I think it will happen after our biological life ends. Let’s also forget the common notion of “God” we don’t need him in this discussion.

I don’t dispute that empirically theists are at least as bad as atheists in moral terms but that only highlights that there are other things that vastly outweigh people’s decisions on moral decisions. From my experience this is really the case especially on the general population who doesn’t care much about these subjects. Religious beliefs only play a decisive role when they are at the very center of this individual moral code, as in the example of terrorist bombers.

Asserting that theists are also very much amoral doesn’t say nothing about the philosophical claim that a spiritual point of view is ethically better that the atheist point of view. I also want to dismiss much of religious cannon and concentrate on the common message of religion which can be summarized as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and that “there is an afterlife”.

Moreover discussing which philosophy has the higher moral ground (existential nihilism or dualistic eternal mind) is trivial unless we solve which one is true without doubt.

Morally speaking you can fit me as much closer to the Baha’I faith.

Hitler was much more an atheist than a theist. I don’t care how much you try to dispute this. I don’t care that the man was baptized. I was also baptized and I am not a catholic! He would gladly used religion to reach his core goals. Hitler was a philosopher, not a religious person. I think the man was a bit psychopath at least… Talking about his religious views is trivial because they were not what moved the man. And this is a point for the argument that you should have a strong loving spiritual core to avoid increasing the probability of having criminal activity.

I know that most people don’t go around committing crimes because we have in our modern society’s means of finding and penalizing criminals and protecting minorities. Have you seen the movie “the Road” (that depressing little pearl… ) ? I don’t think that that was farfetched. Morality is a slippery subject when you change between cultures and scenarios. But a transcendental moral compass can be valuable in stressful situations.

Today the world spins around money and I see many immoral things done by people with a lot of money and many roam freely. They don’t seem to care about the suffering they cause onto others. Truth is money can buy you a conscience, I don’t see the bosses of Nike worried about working conditions in Pakistan. Not unless people with more conscience speak about it and boycott their sales… and if there is nothing to judge you after death and oblivion awaits… why should this person change his attitude?! Bosses of Nike and investors of Wall Street are living grand with a big G… hey if I was a hardcore existential nihilistic person I might do the same! I have no grudge with Nike… it was just an example.

One thing I find clear… power corrupts people. Also I believe that a strong spiritual motivation can prevent this corruption. When one is very powerful the general law doesn’t apply and every whim can be satisfied. On this situations having a core transcendental belief of an higher moral code can prevent the excesses of power. On the nihilist perspective, when you are powerful, YOU are the moral compass, nothing is higher than you.

I can picture a lot of scenarios context dependable and exclusively dependable on the education and empathic personality of a person. Surely, knowledge and beliefs greatly influences moral actions, not just instinctive empathy. So my belief that life continues after death has implications on my moral choices. But if you say something and do another than what you are Sir, is a hypocrite, and the world is full of them! This is because many people don’t really believe what they say, they just say it to conform to society.

Of course that in society we should uphold the law and protect the week and the minorities because we can be affected as well, but for a sole individual his lifespan and consequential transcendental justice of his actions can play a deep role on ethical decisions like my brief anger demonstrated when I wanted to do some “justice” of my own… If religion is so powerful that can make a man blow up itself than, if well directed, it can also make him a loving person. This a big step from subjective empathic motivators (evolutionary moral) to objective moral motivators (rational moral).

Hello Luminon!

I will do Beyond Saving strategy. She promised to pay me until monday with no delay. I am pressing the subject because I'm leaving the country for a year and I need the money. If this doesn't work I'll use the bluff and say other people will come knocking on her door when I leave... like my parents! See if I can get some shame on her...

I still think we should act on compassion and help those people in need. Especially people we know. For example, I have lend a larger sum to another person last year and this person is paying me. Only 1/3 of the loan is due... Of course... I had more assurance that this person would pay me back from the beginning.

But I also think we should be intransigent with injustice and honesty. I don't have any debts so I also don't like when others abuse their credit towards me.

This is your opinion which I respect. I was merely stating mine. The point being that such profound different views of reality should have an impact on some moral decisions between me and many atheists and even many theists. I have read scientific papers on medical science published for example on Lancet medical magazine that could support my view of dualistic philosophy. This is not a closed subject.

Yup, my bad.
 

No, no, no... I was not saying that it was the only difference... I was merely trying to put some distance between ME and the everyday theist, as I don't see my views reflected on most of them. Moreover I think those statements (the Golden rule and the afterlife) have deep religious origins. The afterlife is one of the few differences between me and the common atheist, yes!
 

Well... I don't know... Humans aren't all that "good" we are clearly capable of doing many atrocities. All for money, power and sex. when you put food into the equation... I don't know. Take Haiti for example!
 

I agree

I understand the evolution of morals that were then hardwired in our psyche. This is all very cool, but humans are very complex beings and not just controlled by these instinctive animal traits... We can clearly see that when we see so much atrocities and injustices in the world. But there is a moral check that keep us from annihilating each other, yes.

I never pretended to dispute this!

The spiritual view I have and tried to explain is different from mainstream. Mainstream religions have distorted moral views in my opinion. Much of this distorted view comes from that intolerant group view.

All you were saying was giving me your materialistic opinion on the origin of moral, which I already knew. I find that view very subjective and sometimes difficult to defend on the court of law... If the roots of bad behaviour are in separatist group views why do you seem this group intolerance as bad? Isn't moral subjective? Wasn't this social evolution and thus we are not guilty of having this group moral?
 

My point is what I have said and maintain: "...for a sole individual his lifespan and consequential transcendental justice of his actions can play a deep role on ethical decisions like my brief anger demonstrated when I wanted to do some “justice” of my own… If religion is so powerful that can make a man blow up himself than, if well directed, it can also make him a very loving and inclusive person. This a big step from subjective empathic motivators (evolutionary moral) to objective moral motivators (rational moral)." I think this is important if we want to improve individual behaviour beyond our genetic chains and make it more rational... or we are going to have many people who individually are going to do everything they can to be happy since the only moral compass they have is their's and their's alone. However if there is an indelible and deep metaphysical link between all humans then everything changes. Their suffering will be my suffering sooner or later. If on the other hand materialism is the whole truth then moral loses much of it's rationality.

In this regard I say that most in the world (besides religious fanatics) really act on materialistic (evolutionary) ethics right now. That is why we see many injustices.

But I have to say in fairness of this question, that I would rather have atheistic and secular ethics in politics than mainstream religious ethics.

Exactly.  If morality was really based on consequence you'd be able to show a perfect correlation between increased temporal punishment and decreased crime.  Doesn't happen though.  Assuming that the equation fixes itself when the consequence is removed to a nebulous afterlife seems a bit naive honestly...humans aren't good at cost/benefit analysis past short term time frames.  If we were, we wouldn't have starvation, energy crisis or global warming....so I don't know why moving the time scale back even further would help us overall.

I think if this were true you'd also be able to show a strong correlation between the type of afterlife assumed and the moral behavior of individuals but I don't think that would be backed up by actual evidence either.  The Muslim hell is pretty bad, and so is the Christian one, but I don't think your average person in those religions is consistently more moral than a Buddhist or Jew or liberal Christian.

You have based your entire argument on the notion that anything beyond materialism is fantasy and stupidity. You say that also without any evidence. 

There are several indications that we may not have the whole truth. I told you... there are some scientific investigations that seem to point that that there could me more to reality than what we think.

There was an important study published on the famous Lancet magazine - www.zarqon.co.uk/Lancet.pdf. You may scream all you want but this is NOT mumbo-jumbo. There is another major study being conducted as we speak.

Quoting from the study: "Our results show that medical factors cannot account for occurrence of NDE; although all patients had been clinically dead, most did not have NDE." "If purely physiological factors resulting from cerebral anoxia caused NDE, most of our patients should have had this experience. Patients’ medication was also unrelated to frequency of NDE. Psychological factors are unlikely to be important as fear was not associated with NDE." "Several theories have been proposed to explain NDE. We did not show that psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest." "With lack of evidence for any other theories for NDE, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that consciousness and memories are localised in the brain should be discussed. How could a clear consciousness
outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG? Also, in cardiac arrest the EEG usually becomes flat in most cases within about 10 s
from onset of syncope." "Another theory holds that NDE might be a changing state of consciousness (transcendence), in which identity, cognition, and emotion function independently from the unconscious body, but retain the possibility of non-sensory perception" "Finally, the theory  and background of transcendence should be included as a part of an explanatory framework for these experiences."


If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Again I say this is not a closed subject. It is not faith based.

I am not entirely sure, but I think I'm right... but you seem to know with absolute certainty that I am wrong... well it's your opinion, opinions are like hats. Not only this study but all my life experiences tell me that the dualistic view is likely to be true.

I'm not playing with semantics. If there is no moral that binds us beyond social evolutionary instinct then everything is permissible. I return to my previous claim in a materialistic view that there is only the individual, everything is focused on him, the ultimate selfishness. This is what is happening now. People say and do everything they can for the benefit of themselves or the group, because the group will also benefit them... but covertly they also do everything they can for themselves... and depending on this person's "empathic spectrum" they could have very subjective ethics, and they would be rational too!! It is impossible to have all humanity in this "moral" group. You may behave empathicaly with all humans, even at your own prejudice but that wouldn't be rational in many scenarios. You would be only following your social instincts.

Yes we do!

If it happens that one of these persons lacks normal empathy, the emotional bonds break and serious criminal behaviour appears. If you kill the rich old man and get away with it, or if you rob the bank and get away the benefics are enormous! People will always try to compete other people away, because people really behave like they live in a purely materialistic world! And in fact for the person doing it this is not bad! It is only bad for society... but who cares! "You only live once!" How can "his" survival be at risk! "He" scored big time!

"Fuck that" I rather have this much more elegant notion that awareness is something that has ilimitted lifespan and that we are all deeply connected to each other... which happens to be the TRUTH too! "In the box" is the "wisdom" of the dualistic mind matter reality.

You are confusing the map with the territory.

We are not saying that everything is material. Thoughts are not material. But they ARE a manifestation of material processes.  If thoughts did not come from material processes you wouldn't be reading this right now. My brain is made up with material which can state an abstraction like "1+1=2" which is not material but CAN BE TESTED and falsified.

We are saying that only things that can be studied and tested are valid and if it cannot be tested it is not worth consideration. We don't know what happens at the center of a black hole, but we do see the affects of what goes on around it. And we don't have to insert Thor as the gap answer to whatever we don't know about black holes.

Running is not a thing, but we can study the REAL events of human legs in motion that lead to running.

Miles per hour are not a thing, but a description of observation. So if we say this person is "running" which is not a thing, but a process, we use MPH as a description of this non-material process caused by a REAL material proccess which "running" is a description.

Your argument is as stupid as "You cant see air but you know it exists".

Now, if you really believe there is a non-material magical super brain with no brain and magical super powers, we cannot stop you from making that claim.

But it is UP TO YOU, to find a universal way for this "critter" to be detected. Making naked assertions and proxy of popular belief won't cut it here.

It doesn't have to be "material" anymore than Miles Per Hour is a material. It just has to be observable and testable. Just like gravity isn't a thing but a process that can be tested and observed. We know gravity exists because of the REAL affects it has on material and we use material objects to test this non-material process.

Ok, then send me your computer right now because that is material and we should never want material things.

I am sorry it bothers you that people outside your pet god can be moral. Selfishness is not the result of comic book super heros and not all selfishness is bad.

I am selfish at work in the sense that I wont wait for others to do something. I may piss them off sometimes, but that "selfishness" also benefits them in that if I do it, it is one less thing they have to do.

If anything is selfish it is the attitude that your club should be the center of the world and everyone should bow to your club.

"Selfish" to me is saying "Life revolves around me". The character people claim to be real called god exhibits  the worst form of selfishness ever manufactured by humans.

What is worse is that they go around promoting this self centered tyrannical brat without a lick of evidence for such.

No.  It is only true if someone was saying anoxia alone was 100% responsible and that simply denying oxygen to the brain allows recreation of an NDE.  No-one is saying that, but that is what they are implying.

The problem with this is the terminal problem some people have saying, "I don't know".  What we *do* know is that physiology is linked to NDE's, because people with certain states are far more likely to have NDE's.  Anoxia is one such state.

If a paper was un-biased it would say, "Anoxia does not fully explain the NDE state." and leave it at that.  Maybe they could even speculate about dualism, fine.  But they don't, they say, "physiological states" which literally means they rule out every physical reason there could possibly be and jump to, "it must be magic".

They have no scientific basis to make such a claim.  They have no hypothesis.  They have no predictions to be tested.  They have done no original testing.

Can you imagine if a physicist did this?  Seriously?  "We've discovered an anomaly we can't explain and so without doing any original research we've decided it is magic."  That's what this paper says.

To actually find out what an NDE is might be very difficult.  The only 95% sure way to do it at this point would be to put people in these states under controlled conditions and figure out why some experience them and some don't, while monitoring them with a full suite of diagnostic tools.  That probably isn't going to happen because that would mean killing people.  So we'll have to see if less drastic measures get results, or something novel comes up.  Maybe if we get the technology where an fMRI is as cheap, easy to use and portable as an EEG we might lead to some interesting data.  Right now we don't have a way to actually see what is going on in these cases because our diagnostic tools aren't suited to emergency situations.

*BUT* you don't get a pass by saying, "We looked at this for a while and couldn't figure it out, so we're going to say it is caused by something un-falsifiable."  No-one in science should be able to make claims like that, because when they do they *aren't doing science anymore*.  I don't care if it is about NDE's or gravity or quantum mechanics or anything, if you can't make a falsifiable claim you don't have anything but speculation.

That's what this paper is, it is non-scientific speculation based on survey data.  It could have been fine, but they way they present their findings submarines their own work when they leap to a conclusion supported not by evidence, but by a lack of evidence.  This would be exactly like saying, "Our test did not find gravity waves, so we conclude gravity is supernatural."

No.  I do not need evidence to support the assertion that you have no evidence.  Your lack of evidence is self evident! I base my argument on the fact that you cannot support your claims of any metaphysical or supernatural influence on these matters and thus I am under no obligation to muck up the waters of inquiry by including them in an analysis of morality.

And here is the interpretation of the findings of the study...

We do not know why so few cardiac patients report NDE after CPR, although age plays a part.  With a purely physiological explanation such as cerebrial anoxia for the experience, most patients who have been clinically dead should report one.

It is a steaming pile of horse shit.  The study came to no clear conclusion aside from a collective shoulder shrugging and saying" HMMM, That's funny!"  There is a quantum leap involved in going from "There are some weird things that may or may not happen in near death scenarios" to "It proves the existence of the metaphysical".  I am sorry if I am not willing to sit by while someone tries to foist such an idea on others.  It is a tremendous case of confirmation bias at best.

I know with absolute certainty that you are offering a position with no evidence to validate it. Your life experiences are irrelevant.  If you were blind, your life experience would not include the recognition of electromagnetic radiation  but that would not effect its reality.  It is about evidence, not anecdote.

Bullshit and it offends me that you would suggest such a thing.  Morality is innate to us simply because if we had not developed it we would not have survived.  We are a social species.  Individual selfishness isn't even particularly compatable with evolution.  Evolution is about populations.  A breeding population is what my genes need in order to propogate and replicate.  Gross individualism would undermine the stability of the population and kill us all.  The particular "veiw" one has is not a part of this innate morality it only informs and builds upon it.

You would indeed.

No, we don't.  You want that to be the case.  There are people who do not posess the same level of base morality.  We call the psychopaths and sociopaths.

You seem confused as to where you see morality originating.  At times you speak to it as innate and at other times you claim it is defined by an afterlife!  You can't have it both ways, which is it?  

I don't know if they deserve quite so much scorn.  I don't think there is any reason to think they are signs of dualism, but I think studying them is interesting in how it might relate to our understanding of conciousness.  If they originate during a lowered oxygen state then that teaches us something about the ability of the brain to be active in that state, and if they originate after the brain reboots it tells us some interesting stuff too.  Knowing exactly what is going on to create these things seems to me like a very valid thing to study...as long as we aren't going in with assumptions about proving or disproving dualism.

I'd be just as interested in controlled tests about alien abductions, but that might be even harder to study than NDE's.  Maybe.  Hmm...I wonder if anyone has ever tried to replicate those conditions?

I'm sorry, I don't see much validity in your claims. I have seen a lot of studies in prospective medical science because of my field of study (biotechnology) and these studies are made more or less this way. I see nothing wrong with the methods. I don't think they have rulled out the physiological explanation, they merely said that they can't find a explanation. They could not come to a convincing theory to fit the facts: 

"And yet, neurophysiological processes must play some part in NDE. Similar experiences can be induced through electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe (and hence of the hippocampus) during neurosurgery for epilepsy, with high carbon dioxide levels (hypercarbia), and in decreased cerebral perfusion resulting in local cerebral hypoxia as in rapid acceleration during training of fighter pilots, or as in hyperventilation followed by valsalva manoeuvre. Ketamine-induced experiences resulting from blockage of the NMDA receptor, and the role of endorphin, serotonin, and enkephalin have also been mentioned, as have near-death-like experiences after the use of LSD, psilocarpine, and mescaline. These induced experiences can consist of unconsciousness, out-of-body experiences, and perception of light or flashes of recollection from the past. These recollections, however, consist of fragmented and random memories unlike the panoramic life-review that can occur in NDE. Further, transformational processes with changing life-insight and disappearance of fear of death are rarely reported after induced experiences.  Thus, induced experiences are not identical to NDE, and so, besides age, an unknown mechanism causes NDE..."

Nowhere in the paper researchers say it was magic. They haven't concluded anything... they said that there should be more options on the table. This claim is not un-falsifiable. Someday we could prove it. The is an ongoing study trying to do this.

The main investigator of this study said on another occasion that: "For me science is asking questions with an open mind, and not being afraid to reconsider widely accepted but scientifically not proven concepts like the concept that consciousness and memories are a product of the brain. But also we should realize that we need a functioning brain to receive our consciousness into our waking consciousness. There are still a lot of mysteries to solve, but one has not to talk about paranormal, supernatural or pseudoscience to look for scientific answers on the intriguing relation between consciousness and memories with the brain." Pim Van Lommel

There is no proof of this.

No. Everybody without exception; Even NDEs from atheists is reported to be more "real" than "the real world". These people claim that this is not comparable to anything they ever experienced. We can easily dismiss a dream or an hallucination because they are fuzzy, blurred and our mind feels sluggish. Moreover it seems paradoxical to me that one person can report a fantastic story, and heightened awareness when their EEG is flatlined...

I'm not pretending to prove anything to you. I'm just saying that my thoughts do not come from an impossible reality, this could be true. This is just an hipothesis, not undeniable proof of an afterlife... at least not yet.

BardlishtheMagnifico, you keep talking about the origin of humanity moral behaviour, I'm with you, I don't deny group ethics... that is self evident. What I argue is that if we find that we have a "transcendent loving" link to each other we can rationalise ethics in a different way. So I can have it both ways! Moral is innate and it has relations to the afterlife.

Let me put it this way: You give money to a person and without your knowing this person uses the money to buy a gun and kills someone. If you knew that your money was going to be used that way you would never give the money away! Knowledge deeply influences ethical decisions as does empathy. If the afterlife would be true it would change the moral spectrum.

I'm getting the feeling that all of you don't really know what people that had NDEs claim about the afterlife....

Brian37 if you can really make that claim that CONSCIOUSNESS is a product of brain activity without any shred of doubt... then I don't understand how could this study passed peer review; I don't understand why so many researchers are still puzzled by the question... and I guess that your TV set also have people inside it, or else how come it could be spewing all that nonsense. Surely the image is the sole product of the TV electronics, if you break the TV the people go away.

There is no proof of the claim that conscience is generated by the brain exclusively, only circumstantial evidence. There is a model that shows how could a mind dualism could function. It's the same notion as the Tv set. But it is just a theory.

Here is what I would be willing to do.

Take you, and do a brain scan while you "explain" a position you hold/

Along with other people who also hold absurd claims while they talk about their claims.

Here is what WILL happen when we look at the live scans.

What we will see is the part of the brain light up when we think about things that comfort/please us, and we can even trace the chemical reactions to that part of the brain that cause that part to light up.

THAT is what I would be willing to do.

But your claims of NDEs are bullshit claims, PERIOD!

It is merely a dream on steroids brought on by the process of the brain shutting down. It is nothing but your filing cabinet being dumped out and your senses responding to your filing cabinet being dumped out.

You do not have even circumstantial evidence. You have fallen for bad claims made by clever people sexed up with psuedo science.

Thoughts require a material process and CANNOT be separated from a material process. They are not a thing anymore than running can be legs. Running is the end result of legs moving. Thoughts are the end result of material processes. like running is to legs.

"experiences" are anecdotal and notoriously unreliable. The reason they make these claims is the same reason you buy these claims. Because the idea of the super natural appeals to you. Trying to mix real science with "spirit" claptrap, is nothing more than new age wishful thinking.

The only thing worthy of any real study is HOW humans allow themselves to believe false claims  from a psychological/ neurological standpoint.

There is no such thing as a disembodied brain, disembodied thought or super natural spirit. This is just mere mundane human gap filling.

I agree with your attitude. One can go a step further, try something like non violent communication. Are you familiar with that (develloped by Marshal Rosenberg)? The idea is that that person would be willing to help you and give back your money, if he doesn't feel forced to do so. Peopl have a natural inclination to help others, that is why helping others often gives us great feelings. Yes, you can even go to prisons and ask the delinquents if they can remember the last time that they helped someone they hold dear. Then ask them what they felt, and then ask them if they remember something else that make them feel better. Apart from the very small minority of sociopaths, basically everyone will say that helping feels great, and even when they are addicted to drugs, they realise that helping others feels... better! But people are often clumsy, often have unmet universal needs, don't know how to deal with that... 

So, ask yourself: why would this person not give back your money? Sure he doesn't do it with the purpose to obstruct your need for trust. All he tries to dos, is to meet some of his needs, and he things keeping your money is a good strategy for that. But if he realizes that you have a need for trust, for cooperation,..., he can understand your needs, because he also has those needs once in a while. He knows how it feels when those needs are not satisfied. And once that he sees that you are in contact with his needs, things will change. That person has perhaps a need for (financial) security, pleasure, ease,... What would happen if you would focus on his needs? Then he will feel understood. that opens the possibility for him to become open for your needs. Then he might realise that there are other strategies to meet his needs, and that he can even contribute to your well-being.

Non-violent communication might be a more effective strategy than smashing his car

And you don't need a punishing God to scare that person off to give back your money. Helping others is like the joy of a young child feeding a hungry duck. That child is not feeding the duck because he is afraid that God will punish him...