Chubby Nickel Audio Vlog

While this fad is all but over, there are a few people who still believe that NDEs are evidence of an afterlife. When examining these experiences it is very important to remember that, despite a lot of progress, we as humans are very far from understanding how the brain works.

How do we objectively study these experiences? Simple, do not resort to fallacies.

Lancet Study

That study of 344 people that were resuscitated from heart problems shows that only 18% have NDEs and only 12% have significant NDEs. Another result of the study showed that 70% of the people that experience NDEs are religious while only 10% of the people that did not have NDEs were religious. This shows that religious people are more prone to NDEs. I won’t speculate what religion has to do with it, I will just let it sit at that.

The study also had some stories in it, but they were only recorded, not verified. They are just stories as far as objectivity goes. Several people make the mistake that because a story is logged in a scientific study that the stories themselves are scientific fact. They are not, unless they had been verified. None of these stories were verified beyond that the people had the stories.

This doesn’t mean that these people are lying. I highly doubt that they would lie, and because of that, I fully believe that the experiences are real. I also don’t think that people that are hallucinating from taking LSD are lying about their experiences, but I would be insane to think that their experiences are reality. This is were we must remain objective: just because they had these experiences, doesn’t mean that it is evidence of an afterlife. You can trust that they had these experiences, but that doesn’t mean you can trust their conclusions of them. Several pilots that blackout from extreme g forces experience the same kind of experiences, but they are not dying. This suggests that NDEs are caused by lack of oxygen to the brain no matter what the cause is.

There are people that say that the experiences of extreme gravity blackout out of body experiences are different than ones resulting from heart failure. The problem with this is that no one can verify that there is a difference because there is no objective measurement. Just asserting that they are different is irrational.

Then there are those that have NDEs when their brain is in a state of inactivity. This would mean that the brain is not recording anything because it is not functioning. Some people propose that because there is no brain activity at the time of the experience, it shows that there is something other than the brain that provides consciousness… a soul perhaps. The problem with this illogical leap is that no one knows when these NDEs are experienced. It is far more likely that the experience happens as the brain begins to receive oxygen again rather than when the brain is inactive. This is not too far fetched as anyone who has ever had a dream should know, because the state that which the brain is providing images while dreaming is an extremely short period of time while the dream may seem to last for years.

In the end, NDEs are not reliable, verifiable or rational evidence for an afterlife.

There is no “death panel,”  “illegal immigrant coverage” or “total government control” in the bill. While if it had these in the bill, it would be something every American should be against. I was going to do a satire piece to show how ridiculous some people are when arguing the bill, but I think I will refrain from most sarcasm and humor in order to just explain the basics of the bill.

The so called “death panel” is nothing more than people trained to explain end of life care to people so that they know what their options are. Say for instance you are 80 years old and have terminal cancer that will kill you in about 2 months. These people may explain that if you go for treatment you will likely only get a few weeks more life but that each day of the end of your life will be spent being sick with little energy and throwing up often. They will also explain that there is a tiny chance that you may get cured from the treatment. They will also explain that without treatment you will feel much healthier for the first month. Informing people of their choices is in no way telling the people that they should die. Knowing your options and the consequences of those options is more about giving you choices rather than taking them away. This is of course an extreme example. Most of the time, the trained people will just be informing people of their options and will not be as death oriented.

No illegal immigrants will be covered under the health care bill, there is an entire section devoted to preventing illegal immigrants from receiving health insurance. However, without a drastic change in the system, no one can prevent any one from receiving emergency medical treatment. This had been put in to protect people from being left to die in the hospital waiting room. So even without the health care bill, illegal immigrants can receive emergency medical treatment because hospitals are forced to not discriminate.  I will rant later about the misuse of the term “health care” when people are referring to either health insurance or medical care.

The government will never be able to tell you which doctor you can or can’t see as your private practitioner. Nothing in the bill says anything about some group of people gaining the power to refuse certain treatments to people that need that treatment. This is something that has been blown way out of proportion. The bill covers watching and collecting data about treatments to remove the ones that are less effective. So if you are taking a pill that is doing nothing for you while there is a pill that is helping people with the same condition as you, the government will eventually weed out the pill that is less effective for the pill that is more effective. However if the pill you are taking is helping you, then you get to keep taking that pill.

Now onto my rant about the misuse of the term “health care.” People from countries with socialized medicine do come to the U.S. and other countries for heath care. Now be careful about what I am saying about this. They are not going to the U.S. for our medical insurance, they are coming to the U.S. for our medical treatments. Two things that are very different but still fall under the term “health care.” So when the argument is about health insurance and some one says that countries like Canada send people to the U.S. for health care, understand that they are two different things. The problem with the U.S. health care system is not the treatment, it’s the insurance. Every one agrees that medical treatments in the U.S. are very good, but the discussion is about the cost of treatment and the cost of insurance.

Example of a flawed system: I have had to get a new job about every year, each new company waits for 60 days of the date of hire to start their insurance coverage. Even if I get a new job instantly after losing one, the time between coverage is too long to be considered continuous coverage. So every new job I have to wait eleven months until I can use the service I am paying for. Sure if I found some new medical problem it would be covered, but all my pre-existing conditions are not covered for eleven months. So after six years of paying for health insurance I got to use the service about 8 months. It is unlawful for a service provider to take payment from a customer and then not provide the service, and this is exactly what insurance companies do.

So yeah, we need health care reform in the U.S. and we need it soon.

Health Care Bill

Like one of our previous posts the end of life planning section of the health care bill is under fire from the right wing like Sarah Palin has called it a “death panel”. This couldn’t be farther from the truth, instead what is being proposed is entirely logical and absolutely should be included in the final bill.

What is the problem with your doctor talking about the planning of your end of life care? If anyone should be talking about it it should be you and your doctor as well as with your lawyer but that’s another issue. Keeping a plan for your end of life care could keep you from being put on a ventilator when there is little to no chance of your recovering and you’ll just spend the last days of your life feeling like you’re choking with your hands tied down, just as I could imagine Hell.

If you are opposed to this, consider this: the cost savings as well as the humane death of people would be much better than without a plan. With a plan you could put such a thing as a do not resuscitate order if you don’t want to be brought back. Also if you get to be 90+ and get pneumonia you could die peacefully in days in your sleep or you could die as previously mentioned on a ventilator and in complete discomfort.

You shouldn’t buy into the right wing shit, they don’t have your best interests at heart and here’s why: the reason republicans don’t want end of life plans is because their constituency would benefit and profit from it because they would perform more operations which helps make their boat payments. You remember the good old days when hospitals were non-profit? I don’t I wish they would make health care something for people who cared about people and not a profiteering venture for sadistic personalities.

In conclusion why don’t you listen to the people who have your best interests at heart? Any smart person already has a living will, a last will and testament as well as an end of life care plan. But most people don’t have the incentive to do it and most who do won’t until it is evident that they are going to die which may be too late. This is a good idea and will save the money and integrity of all people involved. We should all agree to do the most good even if it costs people like me who have perfectly good health care insurance to help people who don’t.

Like parents mis-use the Santa Claus myth to get their children to behave, once a person loses the childish notion the only true God is the one you happen to believe in, then an awakening occurs which often causes a sort of revolt towards rules, ethics and parents.

When a child learns that Santa is a myth and is not real despite what their parents told them, the child feels like they have been betrayed by the very people that are supposed to be protecting and teaching them. If the Santa myth had often been used to coerce the child into behaving properly, then the child is more likely to be harder to coerce into behaving properly when they learn the truth about the myth.

This is a parallel to when a child no longer believes in the religion of their parents. If the religion of the parents was used to convince their children to behave without explaining more than, “because God said so” or “because God said it is bad,” causes a similar Santa style revolt on ethics and values. Its not because there are no morals without God, its because the child was not taught a higher, universal reason for behaving a certain way in society.

This hypothesis (I will not call it a theory because it has not been developed or studied yet), can explain why there is a period of social dissent as a child matures into an adult. Maybe I am wrong about it, but its OK to be wrong, its the most efficient way for humans learn.

To test, we would need a group of about 200 split almost evenly between religious families and non-religious families. Half of each group would then teach their child morals according to the Bible, and the other half would teach the children morals according to how it affects to society. Then track each child and see how they feel about their parents beliefs throughout their development into adulthood.

I am not saying that the world be better without religion, I am saying that children need to be taught to understand morals mean more than being punished or rewarded.

Hi, my name is Pete and… I’m a game-a-holic… **Whew** it feels so good to get that off my chest!! It feels like I had a chest burster surgically removed. glad I got it out before it tap-danced across the bar singing “hello my baby hello my darlin’ hello my ragtime gal…” I’ve found that there’s been an evolution since the great depression. First, men would work 2-3 jobs to keep their extended family with food in their mouths so they really had no time at home. Then America starts pulling out of the recession and so men need only work one job, so they read the newspaper or start playing golf, still not spending time with their families. Then football and basketball and baseball and nascar etc… still no time for family. Now it’s video games, a friend of mine will play video games and totally zone in so he’s oblivious to everything around him… including his two year old daughter. I believe that it is inherent in men to be mindless animals who only know self pleasure and self gratification but some of their pleasure comes from providing for their family monetary necessities. Yet never actually giving them the time and love and affection that is needed for a fully functional family. I feel that I even sometimes spend too much time for myself or working or whatever, and I can always tell because when I’m giving my family first priority, it’s immeasurably better at home.

Moral of the story: don’t put yourself first, like confusious said “in marriage you can either be right, or you can be happy” O.K. maybe confusious didn’t say that but it’s very true I’m happier wrong than I am right. Also putting yourself last makes room for your family to put you first because if you’re taking care of everyone else then you’re making it so that they don’t have to put themselves first.