If you do not believe there's a god, you're not a theist. 

Indeed.

Atheism is simply a lack of belief in god(s). In fact, there are some atheists that believe in psychics and reicarnation. 

Hah. The ignorance of this person is astounding, poor grammar and spelling aside. I too tinker with out of body experiences. It is simply a shift in your consciousness and brain waves, similar to having a dream. I suppose this person also thinks you should be a believer because you have dreams. Tsk tsk. Out of body experiences are fun though.

"Now introducing OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES! (Divine experience and enlightenment not included. Please see back of package for information on how this does not necessarily mean you believe in an afterlife or God.)"

*sigh* How misinformed this individual is.

Edit: Good luck on your return to The Path©.

LOL. You'll never find it there, jce.

Studying NDEs and Religious experiences is tricky because a) we don't know what conciousness is, and how it is different from unconcious, and b) we don't know how memory works. The best I can give you is confirmed studies by comparing it with drug studies and angiogramic hemodynamics tracking.

We are very interested in miracles. We know they light up certain areas of the brain, as we can observe blood flow increases and ion channel synaptic increases with radioactive isotope tags.As it turns out, the brain spends a lot of it's time talking to itself. Not very much of it is wired to sensory processing. As I type this, billions of tiny electrochemical gradients in ion channels buried inside neuron fascicles are reversing, causing an influx of sodium, potassium and chloride to cross into the synaptic membrane. As a stimulus produces a negative electrical charge, it forces the ions through the channels and into a synaptic knob where billions of neurotransmitters bind to tiny voltage gated ion channels admitting the ions through the dendrite into another neuron producing a reaction. In essence, every controlled function works like this. You probably know that brain size does not correlate with intelligence. You want to know what does? Synaptic connections. Every time a new piece of information is gleaned, an axon makes a new link with a dentride, forming a new synapse. This process is the result of billions of years of painstaking evolution.

When a purpose is experiencing a religious "vision", a massive physcosematic response makes massive changes across the electrochemical gradient, "overloading" the brain. This may cause a deeply devout Christian to see Jesus, or a person to hear a booming voice in their head, or just a huge explosion of color. Any way it is looked at, it could be easily interpreted as a vision like Pascal had.

It would be a similiar experience to being on drugs in that it would have a similiar effect on the rotating ion gradients that allow information to be carried across the synapses. 

Miracles work on the same physcosematic responses. The placebo effect is very powerful and easily demonstrated. Have you ever noticed that "miracles" only take place on the very devout? Have you ever noticed that prayer only works if the person is aware that they are being prayed for? This is not suprising. Emotional upwelling like that has very strong influence on hunter-killer T-Cell lymphocytce activation triggers.

Do I at least get an 'A' for effort? lol

Thanks for your help on this! 

Doesn't even usually work then fo sheezy!

He put truth in raised letters.

Not worth his salt. 

I definitely agree with Dan Barker - nothing fails like prayer. The only good it can do is the placebo effect. Praying to my cats would do just as much good as praying to God - and of course my cats actually exist.

He put truth in raised letters.

Not worth his salt.

That's an overly harsh criticism. I do that sometimes too. 

We must stone him to death.

Or you would prefer they not count the misses. right?

I mean how could we know that the faith of the person performing the intercessory prayer is strong enough to make a difference?

"Nope. He died. Sister Mary, we need to have a talk about your faith because too many of your prayer charges have died this week. We're never going to convince them to keep giving us money for this study if you can't pray right. Daddy wants a new rectory."

Perhaps, the force is not with them. Maybe they need the power of three to affect the patient results. Call the corners? Draw pentagrams?

WAIT. I know.

What if, just if, we didn't waste our time and money trying to disprove the power of prayer and spent it on ACTUAL MEDICAL RESEARCH???

Pray for that to happen, cslewister. lol.

No I would honestly like to see a comprehensive study done where they took into consideration things like religious belief of patient/prayerer, length of time prayed for, amount of people praying…etc. It has nothing to do with me wanting them to count the hits and "not count the misses". I would never say that we could test their "level" of faith. That seems ridiculous to even me, a stupid theist; I would never advocate such idiocy. My point; there are better manners in which to conduct the test. I much prefer a full study than to have anyone tout around a half-assed study. Which is why I'd say that I'd like to see a bigger, more in depth study done before I'd draw any conclusions. 

I'd love to see more funding go towards medical research, but this isn't what this study was for was it? The study was to see what the effects of intercessory prayer are.  

I don't consider you to be just another 'stupid theist', cslewisster. I wouldn't have bothered to post to you if I did.

I think that you would have to admit that no matter what is said, someone will claim bias with regard to their opposing ideological viewpoint.

To me, it seems a waste to study it in the first place. 

We've hijacked the thread with this off-topic atheist vs. theist type subject.

To Arletta,

It honestly shouldn't matter what your label is as long as you're comfortable with it. I prefer the self-ascribed label of atheist. It allows others to add whatever adjectives that they prefer. 

It also adds a hint of intrigue as to your stance on anything else. Like politics or music or habits.

I'm still trying to get the accepted definition of 'strong atheist' changed to: a person that can lift a lot of weight while not believing in a deity.

Then I would fit into the strong atheist label. lol. 

If this is the same one one of my college prof's told me about, they had different people of different faiths (cults, sects, denominations...whatever you want to call them) praying.  They were told to pray for specific patients and for a speedy recovery.  so, it wsn't just geeks in lab coats....and I agree with Matt....It not only didn't help, but letting them know cause them more pain.  Way to go Jeebus... 

OK. That's it.

All posts regarding the power of prayer go here:

Proofs that prayer doesn't work

All others post to Arletta's subject or get deleted.

Why would anyone desire to be an atheist? Theism claims that an infinite reward in eternal bliss awaits you, atheism is simply a lack of belief in the claim. 

Heaven is the ultimate fulfillment of all desire, it is impossible NOT to desire this outcome.

Not you. 

Indeed!!!

LOL!!  I was thinking that too when I read the e-mail.