The talk show host's infant son recently underwent successful open-heart surgery. In his monologue, Kimmel said:

“We had atheists praying for us, okay? We had people who do not believe in God praying to him."

http://people.com/babies/jimmy-kimmel-baby-open-heart-surgery/


Maybe he was joking, but it raises an interesting question for RfM atheists:

Have you ever prayed to the God you don't believe in "just in case" there really is a God?


A related question for those RfM theists who pray to God as a matter of course on behalf others:

Have you ever questioned the reasonableness and fairness of the idea that God would bless *others* for *your* act of prayer?

lurking in Wrote:
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> Maybe he was joking, but it raises an interesting
> question for RfM atheists:
>
> Have you ever prayed to the God you don't believe
> in "just in case" there really is a God?

No, I haven't.

I *have* said to myself, in my head, things like, "I hope x happens."

But it wasn't addressed to any "god."
Then again, neither is prayer :)

So, essentially, we're all hoping for a good outcome. The atheists just don't have any expectation of some magical man in the sky affecting that outcome.

I hope everything works out great for Kimmel and his family :)

I think talking ourselves through difficult situations is an important part of surviving psychologically as human beings. Maybe that's how prayer got started millennia ago: people hoping for the best and internally "expressing" their deepest desires eventually became pleas to a "higher power."

It brings solace and comfort to someone in Kimmel's shoes understandably so, to have good thoughts and prayers winging their way. I hope his baby makes it. That would have to be one of the toughest times in parents lives to deal with a critically ill child or infant.

I watched a video last night about an Atheist who'd died in the ER, his body was placed on a slab for the morgue after he was pronounced dead, who'd gone first to hell in his out of body state (he calls it Hades.) Then he found himself thrust heavenward where he met someone he described as Jesus.

He was shown it was his mother who was praying for him earnestly that saved him from hell. She and others in his family were the reasons he was being sent back to his body.

When he awoke the nurses and doctor attending him about had a coronary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59mRZ1Vj8ZU

If he "awoke," he never died.
Dead is final. Heart stopping, no breathing...those aren't dead. Dead is dead.

He was pronounced dead in the hospital, by the doctor attending to him. He had flatlined, and was gone for 15-20 minutes before he was returned to his body.

He was gone long enough to go from Hades to Heaven and back again. And he was an Atheist before this event happened, mind you. He is not one today.

It's in the video.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2017 10:22AM by Amyjo.

Amyjo Wrote:
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> He was pronounced dead in the hospital, by the
> doctor attending to him.

Doctors make mistakes.

> He had flatlined, and was
> gone for 15-20 minutes before he was returned to
> his body.

Not buying it. 4-5 minutes without blood flow/oxygen, unless your body is very cold, and there's no coming back. Brain cells are irreversibly damaged. And "his body" is all there's evidence for -- nothing to "leave" it or "return" to it.

> He was gone long enough to go from Hades to Heaven
> and back again. And he was an Atheist before this
> event happened, mind you. He is not one today.

His hallucinations, imagination, whatever are irrelevant.
The story smacks of made-up nonsense.

> It's in the video.

Of course it is. Doesn't mean any of it is "true."

I liked the "It's in the video" line.

The earth is flat, it is in the video.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1973291,1973546#REPLY

Of course, when one looks at both sides...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbVmM9ymjxA

With an estimated 20 million NDErs world wide, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss.
It's the after effect on their personal lives that is most interesting. They, according to family and friends, say the person was "changed" for the better...whether they "died" or not.
If hallucinations can transform a person in that way, I'd say this 'ol world need hundreds of millions MORE of those "hallucinations".

I do not dismiss NDE's. I believe that *something* happened that changed the people's life, I just do not accept what the experience gets attributed to. I do not believe the evidence is there to attribute the NDE experience to life after death.

The post you are replying to questions the integrity of this one case, not all NDE experiences.

But I do have to ask, have you never exaggerated or embellished a story to make it fit your needs?

Amyjo Wrote:
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> He was pronounced dead in the hospital,

You do know that the "symptoms" used to pronounce death have changed dramatically as science learns more about death, right?

At one time, death was pronounced when the heart stopped. Once medical science found a way to restart a heart, the "symptoms" of death changed.

This pronunciation of death may have more to do with the definition of death used than if the person was, in fact, dead.

AmyJo: "He was gone long enough to go from Hades to Heaven and back again."

How long does it take to go to Hades? :)

Interestingly, the JWs use the term 'Hades'.

If I had flatlined for 20 minutes, I seriously wouldn't want to come back. I agree that it's pretty well known that oxygen deprivation for that long (actually, a much shorter time) would irretrievably damage the brain.

I haven't ever seen anyone quibble about "definitions" of death in a cardiac arrest situation. You try to keep oxygen circulating until a qualified person, with knowledge, experience and care, certifies death. And then it's over.

No doubt people have occasionally "woken up" in the morgue. {{shudder}} So they weren't dead, in my view.

He didn't want to come back either. He told the angelic messenger in his NDE when asked he wanted to stay where he was and that nobody loved him on earth. (He thought that spirit guide to be Jesus.)

When he was shown his mother who loved him and had been praying for him, as the one person who loved him. He became aware that he needed to return for her sake, and the sake of others in his family ... in essence, that his life wasn't over yet, and he had more living to do on this side of the vale.

He'd been clinically dead for 15-20 minutes when his soul came back into his body.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2017 01:50PM by Amyjo.

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He'd been clinically dead for 15-20 minutes when
> his soul came back into his body.

Correction:

He *claims* to have been "clinically dead" for 15-20 minutes.
Claims aren't facts.
How do we know his claim is accurate or not?
We don't.

... hovered protectively around Soviet cosmonauts stranded in their Soyuz capsule.

Look it up. It's in this forum's search history.

"He was shown it was his mother who was praying for him earnestly that saved him from hell."

Even if the entire account of this man is factual (I'm a skeptic), I would ask: What if he had had no one to pray for him? Would his fate have been different? Would God have sent him to hell to wallow and writhe for eternity? Doesn't seem quite fair to me.

Which begs question: how do you perceive God to be fair? Is meting out punishment that is just by a parent to a child, fair?

Hell by its nature is a state of being that we think of as irreversible.

Why he got to glimpse it before seeing heaven, was maybe to let him know that both places exist. They are not imaginary. He'd spent his adult life in denial as to things eternal before he got his "wake-up" call.

What about those who don't get the wake-up call, like you ask?

Good question. If we're on one eternal course of existence in my mind would mean it will take someone longer to get to that state of awareness, if not in this world in worlds to come.

People who spend a lifetime denying the existence of God doesn't mean he doesn't exist. The fact deity can neither be proven or disproven other than by faith building experiences lends credence to choosing faith or skepticism. They seldom coincide.

Enough people have had NDE's not to disregard them without merit. Physicians and nurses deal with the dying on a daily basis, and have seen enough to know this to be so. It is well documented (NDE's.)

not to disregard those deluded people without merit.

I'm having a hard time with prayer. It was basically the only spiritual habit I had when I left; however, there was never a huge connection for me that I need to pray for x or y to happen. I'm prone to worry and anxiety and prayer has been comforting in times of my life. Right now I'm going through a "does it make sense and why" period, like the questions you pose above.

And ultimately if I have become agnostic and what does that mean for me and what do I tell my children about my beliefs: Why would an all being care if I make it to work safely? Or Kimmel's baby surviving when another baby could use his organs to live-- in other words it's a venue for humans to help navigate the world around them and explain why things happen. It's powerful when we let it be powerful. Good questions and I'm looking forward to reading other thoughts.

Prayer is such a comfort to so many people that it's hard for them to really look at it logically--even people who are otherwise very logical. Know that you're in good company as you look to sort out everything you once took for granted!

Show me one Atheist who prayed for Kimmel.

I can easily imagine a situation where Kimmel, surrounded by a group of friends and relatives in the hospital or in his home, people of all faiths and even those without, asked this group to pray with him. Out of respect and wanting to show support, I'd imagine that even his non-believing friends would bow their heads as a show of support.

This doesn't mean that they suddenly started praying, "just in case" or that in the face of a dying child that they started believing. It means that they were supporting an worried and scared family who was facing losing a newborn child.

I have a feeling that these "praying atheists" were doing so more out of support than belief.

I do not have to imagine that. In the situation you describe, I to would bow my head. In the case you describe, it is not about me or my atheism. I am showing support for others that are grieving, but I am not praying.

When an individual asks me specifically to pray for someone, I used to say "Yeah, sure thing" for the same reason. I learned to say. "I'll keep him/her in my thoughts, is there anything else I can do? Cook you dinner? Baby/house/pet sit?"

The first part of the reply states what I can do along the lines of prayer. The second part changes the subject to tangible things that I can do.

And I bet that the atheists bowing their head in prayer, I mean in solidarity, were not thinking "if the kid don't make it, that'll be a good moment to bring up how families can be together forever!"

Pardon my cynicism, but religion does that.

... Because Pascal's wager is a fallacy.

But I do think, ponder, meditate and wish. Which may be what a lot of believers do when they claim to be praying?

And, no, being an atheist myself, I have never prayed to a god I don't believe in.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2017 03:08PM by steve benson.

That's one thing about the resurrection, that always bothered me growing up. If JC was physically dead for 3 days or nights, wouldn't his body start decaying? Unless you're just in a coma, how can you be literally dead, then all of a sudden things start up again ?
I know the voodoo religion does a practice , where the people take a substance , to appear dead for a long time, then all of a sudden, by a miracle , are alive again. I know that doesn't have to do with the topic, but made me think about it, because debate on it brings up the same issues discussed here, if you're dead , you're dead and nothing will bring you back, unless you weren't physically ,literally dead

Something I find interesting is that we judge things we are trying to decide if they can have happened or not, like resurrection, or whether they exist, like God, or what really did happen, like creation-by-God, or how it worked in the Garden of Eden, assuming it happened---from our own so limited viewpoint.

If there is a God, then by definition, we who are creatures vs the Creator have a limited viewpoint, ours---and therefore cannot know all about God or how He does things.

My daughter quotes a Rabbi she heard say something like, "if I could understand all about God, He wouldn't be God, and I wouldn't need Him.

Makes sense to me.

If one is trying to decide if or how some of these kinds of events described in the Bible happened, to do so with the assumption that we can understand all about it from our viewpoint seems to me to be kind of silly.

I wish I had a better idea; I have been loving hearing how people have researched to find what is fact vs feelings as proof, and I have been enjoying very much the frank, outspoken way people talk to each other on this board. I am grateful for it.

relievedtolearn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If one is trying to decide if or how some of these
> kinds of events described in the Bible happened,
> to do so with the assumption that we can
> understand all about it from our viewpoint seems
> to me to be kind of silly.

It's actually just as much of an assumption to claim we *can't* understand them. Which to me seems just as silly. Especially since so many things formerly not understandable now ARE -- and we understand they're not "supernatural."

> I wish I had a better idea; I have been loving
> hearing how people have researched to find what is
> fact vs feelings as proof, and I have been
> enjoying very much the frank, outspoken way people
> talk to each other on this board. I am grateful
> for it.

Amen to that. Open, frank, brutally honest discussion -- from all points of view -- is valuable.

Eveyone knows a corned beef on rye is the closest thing to heaven an Atheist can find. Here is the prayer: "hmm... hmm... dear C B on Rye. We ask you this day to help Jimmy K,'s child survive and be healthy. Now go down smoothly and deliciously. Amen."

Then we eat and hope the baby is fine. Presto magico... Scientists called Physicians perform science produced surgeries and the prayers are answered.

All hail the might Corned Beef on Rye. (oh... and science gets a big shout out too.).

HH =)

Is this why he isn't hosting his show lately!?? Although they are prerecorded!

Kimmel took a week off.

No. I really, genuinely do not believe in god. To me, supplicating Zuess or Thor would have the same effect. None.

That's someone I've always wondered. How can people claim that Roman or Greek gods are any less legitimate than the Christian? because it's more contemporary? Millions of people used to worship those gods and follow those religious rituals, but they died out and were replaced by Christianity. All Christianity has going for it is the fact that it happened to be the religion of choice for the Western Europeans who are responsible for colonizing huge parts of the world and vastly increasing its numbers of followers.

For that matter, how can one prove or disprove that some obscure folk religion practiced by African Bushmen or something isn't the one true religion?

All religion has for it is numbers. At least the major world religions. So when they pray to the god they believe in, I wonder if they have some conscious or subconscious idea that their God must be the right guy just because so many other billions of people are praying to it as well.

Which makes the audacity of the Mormon religion to claim that they are true despite their incredibly small numbers in comparison to other religions even more arrogant and outrageous, especially since they seem to be so much more zealous in their insistence that their religion is true and everything else is false with absolutely no exception.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2017 03:35PM by midwestanon.