Comment by Bakari on December 4, 2009 at 1:07am

As much as I can't stand D'Souza, it's deeply sad to hear this so-called intellectual try to explain dubious claims.

Comment by Frink on December 4, 2009 at 3:00am

D'Souza has officially gone off the deep end.

1) Of course we would have similar experiences of death, considering the amount of DNA we share, the structure of our brains and physiology is largely the same (with variation) from person to person. However, the light at the end of a tunnel, life flashing before your eyes and seeing dead relatives? These also happen to be cultural memes, so it's difficult to separate the expectation of having them occur from the actual experience of dying. Then, of course, there are people who simply love telling a good story.

2) Geographically widespread reports do not confirm anything without corresponding evidence. Take, for instance, UFO sightings and abductions. These are reported all over the world, yet not a shred of supporting evidence has come with them. "Tunnelers," as I shall henceforth call them, face the same dilemma.

3) He makes an utterly stupid claim at that makes no sense whatsoever between 2:30 and 2:55. See if you can make sense of it, especially the last part.

4) His research is simply unreliable. He starts with a conclusion (there is life after death), then cherry-picks and conforms facts to make an argument. His bias (to say nothing of his methods) precludes his credibility.

5) He argues for Cartesian dualism without demonstrating A) the existence of non-physical entities and B) how non-physical entities interact with physical objects. I'm also calling bullshit on his claim that he's studied neuroscience, which has essentially settled the mind-brain debate.

6) He argues the soul is the moral faculty without accounting for how the practice of morality changes from culture to culture. If there is a god who has a standard of morality, we have every reason to think it would be consistent throughout his creation. Demonstrably, this is not the case.

7) He invokes Socrates. That's great, but Socrates is not an authority on whether souls and minds exist--he simply asserts they do; something I think would likely change had he been aware of what we now know. Second, we've come a long way since Socrates, D'Souza; it's time you expanded your bookshelf and checked out the arguments against it.

Comment by Paul Tourville on December 4, 2009 at 10:33am

His arguments are poo.

Comment by Rachel Burke on December 4, 2009 at 1:20pm

his arguments suck, when your brain dies you hallucinate. how about the fact that almost every thing once seen as the soul has been explained by the material bran.

what speciation event led to the extra ingredient known as the soul. and if the sun is eventually going to swell into a red giant and consume the earth why would we live forever in the whole vastness of the universe we are basically nothing.

Comment by DeSwiss on December 5, 2009 at 11:48pm

D'Souza a dumbass. I'm allergic to dumbasses. Therefore I can't listen to nor watch him or I'll get sick. And my insurance won't cover it because (all together now):

IT'S A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION!!!!

- YAY!!!!!

Comment by Kirk Holden on December 6, 2009 at 3:26pm

Near death experience - yeah, I find my best work on a PC happens during the blue screen of death. Must. Bang. On. Keyboard. Harder.....D'oh

Comment by Dennis Paul Renner on July 28, 2010 at 2:20pm

He still only presents subjective evidence. Not one grain of objective evidence. Just another con-man making money.

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