For those of you that don't know, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) are a phenomenon in which people still experience and continuation of awareness and identity even while clinically dead. So, having an out-of-body experience while flat-lining, entering a tunnel of light, having a panoramic life "review", communicating with a non-physical yet substantial entity (God, essentially).

The term was coined by Raymond Moody in his book Life After Life, in which he retells the subjects' experiences while clinically dead. Moody was heavily criticised for his research method and his personal bias towards the paranormal, but subsequent studies by the likes of Bruce Greyson, Kenneth Ring and and P.M.H. Atwater have confirmed Moody's initial findings and conclusions.

And of course, there was the instance of Colton Burpo's NDE, which was recounted in the 2003 book Heaven is for Real, which was heavily Christian, unreasonable and has a whole load of problems with its consistency in relation to Christian eschatology. But, nonetheless, there's no question that these experiences do occur.

The idea of some sort of transcendent or spiritual substance which exists apart from the material has myriad philosophical problems (if you want to know more, it has to do with Hume's bundle theory vs various substance theories like Plato's Theory of Forms and Aristotelian Hylomorphism), but first and foremost it should be noted that empirical evidence for these experiences isn't evidence for the transcendent, merely that we can say such experiences exist. It's an unjustified leap to just assume resurrection or reincarnation.

However, most of the scientific challenges that have sought to meet and explain these phenomena have fallen flat on their faces. We know it isn't simply a matter of hallucinations, because hallucinations aren't so similar between people, and explanations like cerebral anoxia and an endorphin rush have been resoundingly disproved by the work of Melvin Morse. However, Morse's hypothesis of a "God spot" in the right temporal lobe has, in turn, been disproved by the University of Montreal.

If I had to choose an explanation--there was a study conducted by the University of Michigan on dying rats which found that, thirty seconds prior to death, there was a sharp increase in neurological activity across the brain (supporting the work done in Montreal) which would be experientially similar to take psilocybin, the key psychedelic in Magic Mushrooms. If it holds true that dying people have similar such neurological spikes, it could explain the existence of NDEs.

You can do it Meta. Just banter your way through it.

Fortunately, Wittgenstein and the logical positivists didn't come up.

Are there any caveats to Israel's handling of the situation? And not "blessings in disguise" type of fault, but true errors that they are making. I'm not doubting your line of reasoning, I'd just like a clearer picture of both sides.

The unbelievable levels of xenophobia among Jewish Israelis is the most immediate problem.

Also, the use of white phosphorous is something which disturbs me greatly.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 04, 2015, 08:09:52 PM

"human well-being" is the only thing you can meaningfully base morality on.

What exactly prevents a society from forming morality around Darwinist ethics (assuming Darwinism is in direct opposition to human well-being)?

Nothing; it's entirely possible for a society to be morally incorrect--just look at the Taliban, or ISIS. The point is that ethics is essentially a navigation problem, and questions of well-being necessarily relate to facts about humans. If a social darwinist movement usurped the ethics of a society and navigated itself away from adhering to factual guidelines regarding well-being, they're moving in the wrong direction.

I know this seems extensively similar to the other thread of Kiyo's, but I wanted to create a thread in which I lay forth a "complete collection" of propositions and pieces of evidence to suggest why one should view Israel as the morally superior force in the region.

So, first of all, allow me to express my genuine opinion that both sides have serious faults I'm willing to admit to. However, it seems clear to me that it's a case of horse shit vs bird shit and which one you'd rather end up with on your face (Hamas is the horse shit).

First and foremost, Israel gets a lot of flack for just bombing the shit out Gaza. Which is, of course, fair enough--I can see why that would upset people. However, what most people don't seem to realise in these instances is that Hamas fires rockets from residential areas, essentially forcing the Israeli's hands into retaliating against an area (consider how densely populated Gaza is) which will yield massive civilian casualties. It doesn't seem to me especially questionable why Hamas do this; they want civilian casualties, and if you disagree you can tell that to the women they've used as human shields.

It's quite clear that Hamas is only interested in one thing: the advancement of it's toxic, fundamentalist and pan-Islamic ideology. It is so blinded by anti-Semitic hatred that it willfully worked 160 children to death in the construction of tunnels, with which they attack Israel. It isn't surprising either, the Charter of Hamas (apparently disowned by the group) explicitly refers to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion an anti-Semitic fabrication created in Tsarist Russia under Nicholas II and later adopted by the Nazis.

It's not at all a mystery as to why Hamas is the way that it is, either, and no that isn't Israel's fault. Israel occupied Gaza following the Six-day War in 1967, and actually showed tolerance to Islamic activists (lifting the restrictions of the previous Egyptian rulers) while it pursued the secular PLO, which at that time was considered a terrorist group for not recognising Israel's right to exist. Hamas originally began as the sort of "Gazan branch" of the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in 1928 as a pan-Islamic group), where it extended charities and improved education. With the backing of the Israeli Civil Administration, the number of Mosques in Gaza doubled between '67-'86.

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, had also founded a militant wing which was recognised as a charity by Israel and allowed to build infrastructure like schools, mosques and a library. Hamas, however, wasn't founded proper until the First Intifada, when the Palestinians rose up when an IDF truck struck a car, killing four Palestinians. It's generally thought that economic grievances, as well as population dynamics, was the main cause of the Palestinians' grievances.

Hamas first began conducting terrorist activities in the 90s, against both military and civilian targets. It began suicide bombing in the West Bank, and then in Israel following the mass murders by Baruch Goldstein in 1994. Although these actions by Hamas violated the Oslo Accords, PA President Arafat was reluctant to do so and some analysts believe he chose not to (read: Arafat's War).

Hamas moderated itself for the 2005 elections, and managed to win a plurality. Israel disengaged from Gaza (as well as having 9,000 Israelis forcibly expelled from where they were living in the region), and Hamas would go on to fight the secular Fatah, win and then begin enforcing Islamic law in the region.

A lot of you are probably wondering why I'm only discussing Hamas and not the Palestinians at large. Well, unfortunately, Hamas isn't as reviled by the Palestinians as we'd like them to be; they enjoy a support from 89pc of Palestinians, who we know are already radicalised as 68pc claim suicide bombing against civilians in the defence of Islam is justified.

We can't afford to surrender to this sort of fundamentalism.

Although, there still isn't any objective reason to follow utilitarianism.

You're immediately holding this hypothetical science of morality to higher standards than you're holding any other science. What objective reason do you have to follow empiricism or logic, you can try and claim that it's a recursive epistemic axiom, but there's no recursive justification if you don't value those things in the first place.

Also, I should point out Harris isn't a hedonistic utilitarian in that pleasure > suffering. He is much more Aristotelian in that he proposed eudauimonia, or human flourishing, as the proper benchmark.

You are truly a wise man.

I'm touched.

So all the reports of Israelis indiscriminately shooting children is what? BS?

No, I didn't even remotely imply that.

It's just like My Lai--sometimes soldiers get overheated in war and just lose it. Except I've never heard of anything as bad as My Lai come out of Gaza.

The point is that Palestinian fighters actively encourage this behaviour by getting the Israeli's to retaliate and cause damage to urbanised areas and by using their own people as human shields. They want indiscriminate murder because it advances their ideology and their goals.

It's a tragedy that it ever happens, of course, but it doesn't change the fact that Hamas implicitly encourages this by their behaviour. Fuck, can you imagine how much indiscriminate murder there would be of Israelis (maybe even Arab Israelis, too) if Hamas and their broad Palestinian support base were allowed to do whatever they want to them. That's pretty much the position Israel is in, now, and to deny that they're showing incredible restraint under intense international scrutiny is just to misunderstand the whole situation.

not Israels "minimum" which seems to break 1000 every conflict

I'll refer you to the points before about how Hamas fires rockets from residential areas and from besides schools and hospitals. Hamas wants high casualties so they can point to Israel and shout oppression.

Except you didn't demonstrate that I'm wrong. You dismissed my posts.

You tried to claim something about Hamas storing/using rockets in residential areas, hospitals, schools et cetera which was wrong.

I've clearly demonstrated just how radicalised the Palestinians are in the context of toxic fundamentalist ideology and Hamas, and how they're spreading anti-Semitic and explicitly genocidal messages as well as how they've called for the slaughter of innocent Israelis in the past (which you, yourself, condemned in the Israelis despite the fact it's instigated by Hamas a lot of the time).

Now, if you want to sit there and cling to the initial point you've made--telling yourself I haven't undermined it in any way--and just questioning my understanding of the issue, then fine, but the only reason I can think you wanted to make this thread was to discuss the nature of the problem in the Middle East and the moral considerations involved with either side.

Unless, of course, this was just an anti-Israeli knee-jerk reaction to what I said about Nazis and Hamas or to some news story you saw?

Yeah also reminder to stay OT, this isn't Anarchy.

There's nothing really to discuss, though. I quite comprehensively destroyed your position, in part due to your unwillingness to properly defend it and then insist on attacking my understanding of the issue.

Well yeah I am calling you ignorant, you've posted nothing but right-wing rhetoric

The source which shows most Palestinians support Hamas comes from a Palestinian think-tank.

The only reason you support Israel is because Palestine has a muslim population.

That must be why I readily support Kurds in their desire for autonomy and why I consider myself to be on the side of the Rohingya people in the face of violence in Myanmar. . . Because they're so not Muslims.

There's really no debating with zionists.

Feel free to stop at any time; you'll probably come out of this better if you do.

You can't say Israel has the moral high ground when they cheer at Palestinians being slaughtered.

I wonder what percentage of the Israeli population those people represent. I also have to wonder if you'd equally condemn Palestinians cheering for and supporting the slaughter of Israelis.

And you've also never been to the region so obviously you're looking at Israel through rose tinted glasses.

That's incredibly rich coming from a person who supports Hamas over Israel. Never mind rose-tinted, your glasses are opaque.

So your solution to evidence is to just say "Yeah, I don't trust it" and then make up bullshit for your own ends?

It's no secret Hamas fires rockets from such locations. Nor that they use human shields, air anti-Semitic cartoons or have previously supported and distributed explicitly genocidal texts--claims which you're yet to address.

I also know of no instance in which a significant amount of Palestinians were forced out of their homes since 1948.

Well first of all I never claimed all Palestinians were Nazis, I claimed Hamas effectively were.

32pc of Palestinians supported the murder of a Jewish family, including children.

83pc of Palestinians approve of some or most groups which attack America.

89pc of Palestinians support Hamas.

51pc of Palestinians supported Osama bin Laden.

68pc of Palestinians say suicide bombings against civilians in the defence of Islam is acceptable.

All of this--not even factoring in the fact that Hamas fires rockets from besides schools and hospitals, use human shields, air anti-Semitic cartoons and used the fabrication known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion--is enough to flatly condemn Hamas and the majority of Palestinians supporting them, whatever the faults of Israel.

Especially considering Israel extends suffrage to it's native Palestinians, allows them to be elected to the Knesset and has a Palestinian on its supreme court.

Hmm, it basically says that an individual is actually the same "individual" as another with the same physical pattern.

Essentially, yeah. I don't entirely understand how it's supposed to work to be honest, especially at the atomic and cellular level. And, when you are recreated, at what point in your life is the replica "you" recreated from? Would you still have the experiences you otherwise wouldn't have had by that age.

It seems to my eyes that such a theory engages in some sort of quasi-Platonism--it assumes some sort of egoistic Form or Substance in which the properties of an individual agent exist. I'm much more partial to the Humean bundle theory, and its conclusion that the togetherness of the properties themselves engender a sort of "substance".