Tomorrow, July 27th, I will be deactivating (or deleting) my Facebook account. If I actually know you in real life, I’m not dead, or even sick. I’m just fed up with Facebook.
I’m sick of having Big Brother “fact check” posts with a liberal bias. I’m tired of wondering how in the hell Mark Zuckerberg knows I went to Ireland in 1998 (true) but think I got married to my wife when we became “friends” on Facebook (false).
If you are one of my friends on that social media platform, there is a decent chance I’ll miss you. Of the thousand-plus connections I’ll be severing tomorrow there are a handful of people with whom I communicate on almost a daily basis that have made this decision more difficult than it should be. Some of my favorite connections on Facebook such as Jon, George, Paul, and Remo are people I’ve never actually met in person, but feel like I’ve known them forever.
Most of the people with whom I’m connected through Facebook are kindred spirits, and I will truly miss them. I would hope that some might decide to continue our connection by subscribing to my website at www.southernprose.com, where I intend to be posting new material and my opinions on a more regular basis. If we lose touch, I will feel a sense of loss and miss them. But I have a lot of work that needs to get done, and when I’m not having a great time joking around with my social media friends or discussing our common interests, I’m wasting valuable time engaged in stupid arguments with complete idiots.
I don’t necessarily think that Zuckerberg has too much money (because I am NOT a socialist) but I’m absolutely sure he has way too much power, and I’m giving him more by my participation in his business venture. As I just said, however, the impetus for my decision is my own inability to resist the temptation to engage in ridiculous arguments with obstinate fools when I should be writing. My own lack of discipline is to blame. The final straw came in the past several days, after I published the opinion piece “Vincible Ignorance” at the blog and then posted a couple of links to the article on Facebook.
In the course of defining vincible ignorance for that piece, I talked about the interesting case of Pam Reynolds, who underwent a very dangerous operation for an aneurysm at the base of her brain. During the surgery while she was heavily sedated, with her eyes taped shut and clicking noises being regularly generated in her ears according to firsthand witnesses, while the cardio-vascular surgeon sliced into one leg to tap her femoral artery, Pam claimed that she “heard” the conversation and later recalled the memory accurately.
According to those expert witnesses, Pam’s physiological condition at that moment made audible hearing impossible, but the memory was accurate in the sense that the conversation in question had actually taken place. While Keith Augustine had rather presumptuously described Pam’s experience as hallucinatory, he used “anesthesia awareness” as his potential explanation to account for the accuracy of the details, arguing that in spite of the well-documented details culled from recorded interviews and Pam’s medical records, she had been able to hear with her normal senses. The explanation for the accuracy in what Pam claimed to see with her eyes taped shut was attributed to hallucinations induced by sounds of the surgical saw that Augustine claimed she could hear but the attending physician in the room said Pam could not.
Two different skeptics went in opposite directions with their objections to Pam’s account as told. The first took what I like to call the “hair-splitter” approach to the evidence, echoing the sentiments of Mr. Augustine and an Australian anesthesiologist named Gerald Woerlee, both of whom concluded that “anesthesia awareness” was the best explanation. My response to that nitpicking argument is that conclusion might actually work for Pam Reynolds, but it doesn’t work for Michaela Roser, who claimed to hear a conversation not taking place in the operating room during the surgery to save her life, but in the hospital cafeteria involving her close family members.
As with Pam’s case, witnesses on scene confirmed Michaela’s account, even though she wasn’t in the room and couldn’t have possibly overheard the conversation using her normal senses. So in reply I said that I would have to believe in the existence of conspiracy theories specifically designed to fool me into believing that the mind and brain can temporarily be separated without dying. In order to believe both accounts are false, because neither was inaccurate.
I didn’t mind the discussion because the first skeptic had focused on the details of Pam’s account, but I was never entirely sure he understood why I had mentioned Michaela Roser and referred to her remarkable “cigarette” story allegedly overheard when she may have been having an out-of-body experience. The second skeptic used what I call the “shotgun” approach. He criticized NDEs in the generic sense, but I had been one specific account that technically was not even a near death experience, but simply evidence of mind/brain separation if true. I’m not particularly interested in routine NDE accounts at this stage of my investigation process unless they have specific, documented claims of information allegedly learned while the subject was incapacitated, not physically present, or both.
I normally wouldn’t post the video above of the Vietnam War vet NDE account because it lacks the specific, documented corroborated veridical claims that remains the focus of my interest, but I found it interesting when I watched it for a couple of reasons. If you bother to watch the fifteen minute video (a number of atheists won’t watch but will criticize it), you’ll notice that on several instances, the speaker hesitates briefly to regain his composure, as the memories provoked emotions that left him choked up. This suggests that Mr. Gardipee sincerely believes what he is telling us, no matter what we think, or he’s a fantastic actor with a future in Hollywood.
This thought brings the skeptic’s true motive into question: studies have shown that people who survive a tragic accident or serious injury typically lead better, more productive and altruistic lifestyles after their experience, probably due to their new conviction that death is only the physical end of this existence, and not the end of consciousness. Many NDE survivors work as volunteers in hospice care, for example, because they feel they can offer unique perspectives and optimism to those who are in the process of dying.
While it is true that Mr. Gardipee’s anecdote and the accounts of Michaela Roser and Pam Reynolds share some attributes in common, there is one key difference: the latter two examples offer a specific information claim that can be independently investigated after the fact.
This last video doesn’t offer any potential evidence worth investigating, but it is worth watching, all the same. It only proves I’m not special; God answers sincere and worthy prayer. If God will answer my prayer and the prayer of this guy, He will hear your prayer, too. But pray wisely. Don’t ask for stupid stuff or material gain.
At the end of the day, I don’t really care what you believe. I’ve presented some of the best evidence I can find to support my beliefs and if that evidence isn’t good enough for you, okay.
I’m not getting paid on commission.
John: I will certainly miss your logic. At the risk of letting the “boys” make
Mincemeat of my online presence, you can always reach me via email.
You’re still on Facebook. Figured you would be.