atheismforthewin:

religiousragings:

atheismforthewin:

fuckyesparanormal:

Gateway of the Mind

In 1983, a team of deeply pious scientists conducted a radical experiment in an undisclosed facility. The scientists had theorized that a human without access to any senses or ways to perceive stimuli would be able to perceive the presence of God. They believed that the five senses clouded our awareness of eternity, and without them, a human could actually establish contact with God by thought. An elderly man who claimed to have “nothing left to live for” was the only test subject to volunteer. To purge him of all his senses, the scientists performed a complex operation in which every sensory nerve connection to the brain was surgically severed. Although the test subject retained full muscular function, he could not see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. With no possible way to communicate with or even sense the outside world, he was alone with his thoughts.

Scientists monitored him as he spoke aloud about his state of mind in jumbled, slurred sentences that he couldn’t even hear. After four days, the man claimed to be hearing hushed, unintelligible voices in his head. Assuming it was an onset of psychosis, the scientists paid little attention to the man’s concerns.

Two days later, the man cried that he could hear his dead wife speaking with him, and even more, he could communicate back. The scientists were intrigued, but were not convinced until the subject started naming dead relatives of the scientists. He repeated personal information to the scientists that only their dead spouses and parents would have known. At this point, a sizable portion of scientists left the study.

After a week of conversing with the deceased through his thoughts, the subject became distressed, saying the voices were overwhelming. In every waking moment, his consciousness was bombarded by hundreds of voices that refused to leave him alone. He frequently threw himself against the wall, trying to elicit a pain response. He begged the scientists for sedatives, so he could escape the voices by sleeping. This tactic worked for three days, until he started having severe night terrors. The subject repeatedly said that he could see and hear the deceased in his dreams.

Only a day later, the subject began to scream and claw at his non-functional eyes, hoping to sense something in the physical world. The hysterical subject now said the voices of the dead were deafening and hostile, speaking of hell and the end of the world. At one point, he yelled “No heaven, no forgiveness” for five hours straight. He continually begged to be killed, but the scientists were convinced that he was close to establishing contact with God.

After another day, the subject could no longer form coherent sentences. Seemingly mad, he started to bite off chunks of flesh from his arm. The scientists rushed into the test chamber and restrained him to a table so he could not kill himself. After a few hours of being tied down, the subject halted his struggling and screaming. He stared blankly at the ceiling as teardrops silently streaked across his face. For two weeks, the subject had to be manually rehydrated due to the constant crying. Eventually, he turned his head and, despite his blindness, made focused eye contact with a scientist for the first time in the study. He whispered “I have spoken with God, and he has abandoned us” and his vital signs stopped. There was no apparent cause of death.

What the hell? This is so unethical it actually makes me feel physically ill. 1983? Really?? Not 1883?

-Rachel

I’m sorry, I have some serious skepticals here.  While I don’t doubt that there may be doctors out there unethical enough to do this kind of thing, this account is presented with absolutely no documentation.  Also, I can imagine them being able to turn off hearing, sight, taste, and smell, but in my admittedly extremely un-medical opinion,  that to turn off touch they’d practically have to disconnect his entire nervous system from his brain, and doing that without causing major damage to other major bodily functions is inconceivable.

Also, it seems to be a little known fact that there are more than five senses in the body…quite a few more.

Sight, Taste, Touch, Pressure, Itch (surprisingly, this is a distinct sensor system from other touch-related senses), Thermoception (ability to sense heat and cold)  Sound, Smell, Proprioception (This sense gives you the ability to tell where your body parts are, relative to other body parts), Tension Sensors (these are found in such places as your muscles and allow the brain the ability to monitor muscle tension), Nociception (in a word, pain; apparently a sense distinct from touch.), Equilibrioception (the sense that allows you to keep your balance and sense body movement), Stretch Receptors (These are found in such places as the lungs, bladder, stomach, and the gastrointestinal tract), Chemoreceptors (these trigger an area of the medulla in the brain that is involved in detecting blood born hormones and drugs;  it also is involved in the vomiting reflex), Thirst:  This system more or less allows your body to monitor its hydration level and so your body knows when it should tell you to drink),  Hunger, Magentoception (this is the ability to detect magnetic fields — very weak in humans), and, debatable, time.

The only references I can find to this experiment seem to be on Tumblr, paranormal sites, and on YouTube with a few weird looking black and white films of a man who looks like he has clay on his face.  I’m pretty sure that if they could have paid doctors to perform this incredible surgery they could have sprang for a color camera from a decade before 1920.  I’m almost positive that they had color film in 1983 and they had better sound recording equipment than Victrolas.

All the words describing the experiment are exactly the same, and none are from an even remotely reputable source.  If this really worked as they said it did, they’d have people lining up to have the treatment done (as horrific as it was) and tons of additional data.

I’m voting for rather poorly done horror fiction on this one.

~ Steve

This was deemed “creepypasta” by one of our own followers. It fits the description nicely, just a creepy story made up by someone on the internet.

-Victor

Thank you for doing my research for me. The research I probably should have done myself considering this was posted on a blog about the paranormal. Hehe I’m glad it’s not true. xD I’ve heard about some pretty unethical things done in the name of research through my psychology course, so my mind jumped to the conclusion that it might actually be possible to be this unethical, and disregarded the fact that it might not be physically possible.

-Rachel 

religiousragings:

atheismforthewin:

fuckyesparanormal:

Gateway of the Mind

In 1983, a team of deeply pious scientists conducted a radical experiment in an undisclosed facility. The scientists had theorized that a human without access to any senses or ways to perceive stimuli would be able to perceive the presence of God. They believed that the five senses clouded our awareness of eternity, and without them, a human could actually establish contact with God by thought. An elderly man who claimed to have “nothing left to live for” was the only test subject to volunteer. To purge him of all his senses, the scientists performed a complex operation in which every sensory nerve connection to the brain was surgically severed. Although the test subject retained full muscular function, he could not see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. With no possible way to communicate with or even sense the outside world, he was alone with his thoughts.

Scientists monitored him as he spoke aloud about his state of mind in jumbled, slurred sentences that he couldn’t even hear. After four days, the man claimed to be hearing hushed, unintelligible voices in his head. Assuming it was an onset of psychosis, the scientists paid little attention to the man’s concerns.

Two days later, the man cried that he could hear his dead wife speaking with him, and even more, he could communicate back. The scientists were intrigued, but were not convinced until the subject started naming dead relatives of the scientists. He repeated personal information to the scientists that only their dead spouses and parents would have known. At this point, a sizable portion of scientists left the study.

After a week of conversing with the deceased through his thoughts, the subject became distressed, saying the voices were overwhelming. In every waking moment, his consciousness was bombarded by hundreds of voices that refused to leave him alone. He frequently threw himself against the wall, trying to elicit a pain response. He begged the scientists for sedatives, so he could escape the voices by sleeping. This tactic worked for three days, until he started having severe night terrors. The subject repeatedly said that he could see and hear the deceased in his dreams.

Only a day later, the subject began to scream and claw at his non-functional eyes, hoping to sense something in the physical world. The hysterical subject now said the voices of the dead were deafening and hostile, speaking of hell and the end of the world. At one point, he yelled “No heaven, no forgiveness” for five hours straight. He continually begged to be killed, but the scientists were convinced that he was close to establishing contact with God.

After another day, the subject could no longer form coherent sentences. Seemingly mad, he started to bite off chunks of flesh from his arm. The scientists rushed into the test chamber and restrained him to a table so he could not kill himself. After a few hours of being tied down, the subject halted his struggling and screaming. He stared blankly at the ceiling as teardrops silently streaked across his face. For two weeks, the subject had to be manually rehydrated due to the constant crying. Eventually, he turned his head and, despite his blindness, made focused eye contact with a scientist for the first time in the study. He whispered “I have spoken with God, and he has abandoned us” and his vital signs stopped. There was no apparent cause of death.

What the hell? This is so unethical it actually makes me feel physically ill. 1983? Really?? Not 1883?

-Rachel

I’m sorry, I have some serious skepticals here.  While I don’t doubt that there may be doctors out there unethical enough to do this kind of thing, this account is presented with absolutely no documentation.  Also, I can imagine them being able to turn off hearing, sight, taste, and smell, but in my admittedly extremely un-medical opinion,  that to turn off touch they’d practically have to disconnect his entire nervous system from his brain, and doing that without causing major damage to other major bodily functions is inconceivable.

Also, it seems to be a little known fact that there are more than five senses in the body…quite a few more.

Sight, Taste, Touch, Pressure, Itch (surprisingly, this is a distinct sensor system from other touch-related senses), Thermoception (ability to sense heat and cold)  Sound, Smell, Proprioception (This sense gives you the ability to tell where your body parts are, relative to other body parts), Tension Sensors (these are found in such places as your muscles and allow the brain the ability to monitor muscle tension), Nociception (in a word, pain; apparently a sense distinct from touch.), Equilibrioception (the sense that allows you to keep your balance and sense body movement), Stretch Receptors (These are found in such places as the lungs, bladder, stomach, and the gastrointestinal tract), Chemoreceptors (these trigger an area of the medulla in the brain that is involved in detecting blood born hormones and drugs;  it also is involved in the vomiting reflex), Thirst:  This system more or less allows your body to monitor its hydration level and so your body knows when it should tell you to drink),  Hunger, Magentoception (this is the ability to detect magnetic fields — very weak in humans), and, debatable, time.

The only references I can find to this experiment seem to be on Tumblr, paranormal sites, and on YouTube with a few weird looking black and white films of a man who looks like he has clay on his face.  I’m pretty sure that if they could have paid doctors to perform this incredible surgery they could have sprang for a color camera from a decade before 1920.  I’m almost positive that they had color film in 1983 and they had better sound recording equipment than Victrolas.

All the words describing the experiment are exactly the same, and none are from an even remotely reputable source.  If this really worked as they said it did, they’d have people lining up to have the treatment done (as horrific as it was) and tons of additional data.

I’m voting for rather poorly done horror fiction on this one.

~ Steve

This was deemed “creepypasta” by one of our own followers. It fits the description nicely, just a creepy story made up by someone on the internet.

-Victor

(via skepticalavenger)

fuckyesparanormal:

Gateway of the Mind

In 1983, a team of deeply pious scientists conducted a radical experiment in an undisclosed facility. The scientists had theorized that a human without access to any senses or ways to perceive stimuli would be able to perceive the presence of God. They believed that the five senses clouded our awareness of eternity, and without them, a human could actually establish contact with God by thought. An elderly man who claimed to have “nothing left to live for” was the only test subject to volunteer. To purge him of all his senses, the scientists performed a complex operation in which every sensory nerve connection to the brain was surgically severed. Although the test subject retained full muscular function, he could not see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. With no possible way to communicate with or even sense the outside world, he was alone with his thoughts.

Scientists monitored him as he spoke aloud about his state of mind in jumbled, slurred sentences that he couldn’t even hear. After four days, the man claimed to be hearing hushed, unintelligible voices in his head. Assuming it was an onset of psychosis, the scientists paid little attention to the man’s concerns.

Two days later, the man cried that he could hear his dead wife speaking with him, and even more, he could communicate back. The scientists were intrigued, but were not convinced until the subject started naming dead relatives of the scientists. He repeated personal information to the scientists that only their dead spouses and parents would have known. At this point, a sizable portion of scientists left the study.

After a week of conversing with the deceased through his thoughts, the subject became distressed, saying the voices were overwhelming. In every waking moment, his consciousness was bombarded by hundreds of voices that refused to leave him alone. He frequently threw himself against the wall, trying to elicit a pain response. He begged the scientists for sedatives, so he could escape the voices by sleeping. This tactic worked for three days, until he started having severe night terrors. The subject repeatedly said that he could see and hear the deceased in his dreams.

Only a day later, the subject began to scream and claw at his non-functional eyes, hoping to sense something in the physical world. The hysterical subject now said the voices of the dead were deafening and hostile, speaking of hell and the end of the world. At one point, he yelled “No heaven, no forgiveness” for five hours straight. He continually begged to be killed, but the scientists were convinced that he was close to establishing contact with God.

After another day, the subject could no longer form coherent sentences. Seemingly mad, he started to bite off chunks of flesh from his arm. The scientists rushed into the test chamber and restrained him to a table so he could not kill himself. After a few hours of being tied down, the subject halted his struggling and screaming. He stared blankly at the ceiling as teardrops silently streaked across his face. For two weeks, the subject had to be manually rehydrated due to the constant crying. Eventually, he turned his head and, despite his blindness, made focused eye contact with a scientist for the first time in the study. He whispered “I have spoken with God, and he has abandoned us” and his vital signs stopped. There was no apparent cause of death.

What the hell? This is so unethical it actually makes me feel physically ill. 1983? Really?? Not 1883?

-Rachel

(via gulskraindukat-deactivated20130)

aindamais:

atheist-overdose:

This makes me really sad.

JFC LOL

This makes me very sad. What happened to education? 

-Rachel

(via aindamais-deactivated20120823)

fuckyeahsexyatheists:

Some of our favorite people on faith. Apologies for the small type.

(Source: yesimanatheist)

yesimanatheist:

and tattoos Lev. 19:28 

yesimanatheist:

I get this a lot. 

Why indeed.

(Source: yesimanatheist)

I’m tired of religious people thinking I’m obligated to respect their religion and their beliefs. And they always say “I respect your beliefs.” Do you now? Really?

-Rachel

(Source: fuckyeahreligionpigeon, via yesimanatheist)

(Source: fl-tsam, via buttsexington)