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I am always trying to find information on atheists and NDE's.While reading an article, I found the following, and was wondering if there is anyone here who understands (in their opinion) why an atheist would be kept in "a sleep state" for a few days.
The late Betty Bethards was an experiencer and paranormal researcher who concluded the following about atheists:If you don't believe in God or an afterlife, you will probably be kept in a sleep state for the first two to three day period. You will wake up in a beautiful meadow or some other calm and peaceful place where you can reconcile the transition from the death state to the continuous life. You are given teachings in the hope that you do not refuse to believe that you are dead.
Bethards' analysis agrees with Ruth Montgomery's research who described an atheists being kept in a sleep state for a short period because of their disbelief of an afterlife.
Could it really be that simple? This doesn't relate at all to everything I've been taught would happen if you didn't believe in God.
Also, do you believe there are such people as "experiencers"? What do they actually experience?
I would love to hear any agnostic/atheist NDE's. There are so many christian NDE's, but I can't find a lot of experiences by atheists. Thanks.
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Last edited by Jess5; 03-03-2011 at 04:45 PM..
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Done and done; modern scientific evaluation kills the NDE.
In the past two years, credible researchers in several Eastern hospitals have pretty much put the final kibosh on the whole NDE idea. Selected patients who chose to participate while under surgery (they thus had the idea of a possible NDE implanted in their heads, and they responded admirably and predictably!) were categoricallyunable to "fly their spirits" to another room and correctly guess the contents of a sealed box (in which there was often nothing, which was a real kill-joy to those who assumed there was at least something in there.).
As well, literally no-one was ever able to correctly describe certain unusual and easily seen actions the researchers did while the patient was completely "under" anesthesia. (i.e.: clapping hands, singing, placing some object in an unusual place, etc.).
Even more fascinating, several patients who claimed to have absolutely had an NDE never approached a technically dead state during their procedure; they were always completely and safely "alive" according to the recorded procedure records. Talk about wishful thinking, huh? "Wishful" for what you may well ask? Well, An NDE means an afterlife, which probably means a God. Which means you're safe!
Too bad it's all a fantasy.Nifty and compelling anecdotal stories to the contrary, such events simply do not happen. Sorry; don't hold your breath (so to speak...)
Last edited by rifleman; 03-04-2011 at 08:18 AM..
Reason: typoz
NDE's have been explained quite well by recent research as being due to oxygen deprivation. The common experience of a bright light at the end of a tunnel is a common effect of such.
Oxygen deprivation doesn't explain the other aspects of NDE's people experience though, such as having sight outside the body when one's physical eyes are blind or closed or gaining knowledge in areas one didn't have before. Here's the story of a woman who was born totally blind but able to see perfectly during her NDE:
When these types of claimed experiences are thoroughly "run to ground" though, they never pan out. THere's always been some add-on post-experiential embellishments, often prompted by the wishful interviewer.
As I said, the entire NDE thing has pretty much run it's course with credible researchers. That won't ever stop the supermarket tabloid publicity hound types from asking for $50,000 for an exclusive interview!
Such is the way of our world, huh?
BTW, the big problem with NDEs is they assume we have a post-mortal and completely mobile soul-entity, which has never been demonstrated in any setting, including near death. So even if it does exist, it's untestable and unrecordable. As well, modern medical science has had to revise it's technical definition of dead, since far too many supposedly technically dead people "came back" from that once ill-defined state.
Fact: none of those truly dead types have ever come back from being what is now considered "dead" [i.e.: no detectable brain wave activity for (as I recall) several hours, plus a drop in deep body temp to < 27˚ or 30˚ C for over 6 hours. The various critical brain and functionality enzymes and proteins have denatured by then, and nothing biological would ever work right again, unless God came along and waved his supernatural wand to reverse the irreversible. Hasn't happened so far; and never will!
Because when that's happened, they're gone-gone-gone, well and truly, and they don't suddenly be then opening their eyes, saying they chose to go "away from the light!" and start chatting animatedly about their relationship with God. Nope. Never. Sorry.
The only NDE I would trust would be my own. Thankfully, I've never had one and hope that I never do. And actually, even if I did have an NDE - I doubt I would be able to tell if what happened was real or if it was all in my head.
I had a very strange dream once that was sort of a premonition of a potentially life threatening situation that occurred immediately afterwards. To this day I'm not sure if it was a warning, coincidence, unusual stupidity on my part or if something tried to "off" me and failed.
nimchimpsky, further to the sightless woman "seeing", this was well explained when it was presented a few years ago here on C-D as the fact that some blind people have not necessarily suffered from some actual irreparable physiological damage to their eyes, but rather to the pathways in which this information is processed in their brain.
That may be a physical severing, or it may just be a "software" problem. That in fact, their brains still receive the info that the eyes collect, and even store some of it in memory, but it does not get out onto "the desktop", so to speak.
There have been many recorded cases of people who have temporarily lost their sight after a traumatic or psychological event, and then later they "magically" regain their sight. Even years later. Or they lost hearing or their sense of touch. Later, it's "miraculously" restored because of a system "re-boot", or the brain solving some internal info-routing problem. As it often does with physically damaged nerves and the resumption of physical feelings after trauma.
Miracle seekers love these stories, since they "prove" the mighty and wondrous hand of God is present. Etc. etc., etc.
This woman obviously never lost her physical ability to see, as, for instance, if the optic nerve were to be totally severed and not rejoined.
There have been a number of well-documented cases of the transiently sightless "remembering" things that happened even when they were supposedly sightless. This easily explains the case you provided. The rest of her ideas, that she suddenly had access of all the world's knowledge, is just fantasizing. That, and hoping she might get on to the front page of The Nat. Enquirer. With a suitable payment of course...
Fact: a technically dead person, as of the agreed-on 2009 international medical conference on mortality's definition, does not then recover and claim a viable NDE. In fact, when they meet those criteria for being dead, by golly, they are!
Now, if god wanted to bring back one of those, after they'd been in the morgue, quite stone-cold DEAD for, let's say, 2 - 3 days, I'd fall to my knees and give him his just dues.
Tain't gonna happen. Never. Ever. And why? Because there is no after-life. And no all-powerful resurrecting God.
This woman never lost her ability to see because she never had it to begin with. If you watch the video, you'll notice she was born blind. She never experienced sight, not even light perception, until her NDE.
What about people who have visual memories of NDE's with their eyes closed? Their eyelids are closed. They cannot be processing visual information through the eyes on any level. A lot of people, while in the hospital, have their eyes taped shut for surgical reasons, but report visual memories during NDE's.
I can definitely understand your explanation in some cases, but I think there are other cases that cannot be explained by a sensory processing disorder or a conversion disorder. I know even in my case, where the blindness was a software program issue (and I still have my old visual software issue programs, but I'm back to the 85% I was at before) it may have just been explained by that. I can see how my fibromyalgia and numb finger could have been healed simply by re-booting a software program issue too. But my deafness was very much physiological and it also returned, as were my arthritis and misaligned knees and jaws, and those also healed. I have new issues with processing auditory information, and I'm not sure if that's just because I'm newly hearing, or if all the blows to the ears and temples messed some wiring up in my brain, but I cannot explain how I got my hearing back. Maybe there is a medical explanation that I just don't know yet, maybe not.
I stand by my beliefs for other reasons, including the Out-of-Body experiences I've had and also the ability to perceive energy that I've had. I would attribute it to blindsight except that I did experiments eyes closed, blindfolded, and through instant messenger and cross-checked with others who see auras and it still worked. I wouldn't believe in this if I hadn't put it to the test first. Even though I'm not a total skeptic doesn't mean that I dislike the scientific approach. One of the friends I cross-checked with, who can see auras and energy in general, is an adamant atheist and a big-time Richard Dawkins follower. He doesn't believe in anything that hasn't been tested scientifically either, and yet he believes in auras because 1) he sees them 2) he's done experiments. He actually sees them BETTER through closed eyes than open eyes, because he says his physiological visual field "gets in the way." He made a whole game out of "sending energy" to me too and seeing if I would pick up on it, and I came up with an accuracy rate way above chance. The only time I didn't pick up on it was when I was completely distracted by mental activity or when we were in an incredibly crowded place and the whole place was full of "static" so to speak.
I believe during NDE's or OOBE's we become more aware of this energy because we are temporarily separated from our physical bodies, so we realized there is another part to us that could either be considered spiritual, or just an aspect of physical reality we haven't as a whole recognized yet. I'd be willing to bet that what we perceive as spirit or energy is completely explainable by science, but I don't believe it's not real just cause we don't have a complete explanation yet. To me that's akin to not believing in the symptoms of an illness just because one doesn't know the cause. Just because science don't have the answer to the "why" yet doesn't mean it's not real.
Last edited by nimchimpsky; 03-06-2011 at 08:09 PM..
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Done and done; modern scientific evaluation kills the NDE.
) were categorically unable to "fly their spirits" to another room and correctly guess the contents of a sealed box (in which there was often nothing, which was a real kill-joy to those who assumed there was at least something in there.). 
)
