my afterlife ancedote (Buddhist, hell, Buddha, America)
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My sister just told me about how amazing the book called "Heaven is for Real" is. I read the description of the book, and I'm just a little skeptical. Basically, the book is about a four year old boy who goes through surgery and then recounts that he went to heaven, met dead relatives, saw angels, etc. But then I read that his father is a pastor, and that kind of blew the whole thing for me. I mean, we are likely to dream/hallucinate what we are told about as a child, right?
I dunno.
I used to read about tons of these after life stories and I was pretty convinced, but not completely.
Then I almost died myself.
I was never pronounced dead, but I was close enough that I was given my last rites four different times by Catholic priests. The thing is, I was not raised religious. I wasn't indoctrinated to religion until I was about four years old, and then it was only very casually. When my mom married a Catholic man, when I was 7, I was pretty much converted to the Catholic church, but my earliest memories were about fairy tales.
I watched fairy tales on TV and movies. I heard them in books. I had tons of audio cassettes with fairy tales, mostly by the Brothers Grimm. One that I had that I remember listening to the most was Hansel and Gretel.
Interestingly enough, during my near death experience, I never saw anything like what people talked about in after life recounts. No bright light. At all. No peace. Nothing related to the Bible whatsoever. No fields of flowers. And not even hell like people recount.
Instead. I experienced being locked up inside a German looking house. And there was an old lady in the house. And she was planning to cook me for dinner.
And that was my near death experience. Didn't do much to increase my faith in anything, other than the fact that fairy tales might be too terrifying for small children. lol Just sayin.
We have had many, many threads trying to prove God through the backdoor through anecdotal accounts of NED's OOB's and miracle -healings.
As you pointed out, there are many similar experiences that do not support religion - in the UFO world there ...sorry , it has to be a foopnote .(1) and there is an element of cherry -picking the events that seem to fit. There is also the problem that they are generally uncheckable anecdotes and it is the old problem of demanding that unverifiable claims be accepted as true, simply because it suits believers. There are some indications in the research that this stuff is produced in the head. 'Voices' were once held up as angelic, but now are just considered a product of the brain (2) and the feeling of an angelic 'presence' is now also considered to be a product of the brain rather than a real entity outside.
While it can be argued that God might use our brains to give us the illusions he wants, that is a step back from objective to subjective. And what just goes on in our heads is not really good evidence of anything, much, other than our abilities to delude ourselves.
(1) In the UFO world there are more sorta -mystical, floating, mysterious messages, prophetic warnings than you could shake a stick at. Christian Ufologists eventually had to explain them as demonic delusions, though some others had to be considered true messages from God (e.g, the BVM apparitions ) but - rather like Creationists debunking hominid fossils by saying that they were either ape or man - they had trouble telling which was which.
(2) sorry, Joan, you were neither saint nor witch, but an inspiring bipedal banner for the French.
Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to base all of my opinions of what Heaven is like on the stories of a little kid....either the kid that inspired Heaven is for Real, or your story. No offense.
My sister just told me about how amazing the book called "Heaven is for Real" is. I read the description of the book, and I'm just a little skeptical. Basically, the book is about a four year old boy who goes through surgery and then recounts that he went to heaven, met dead relatives, saw angels, etc. But then I read that his father is a pastor, and that kind of blew the whole thing for me. I mean, we are likely to dream/hallucinate what we are told about as a child, right?
I dunno.
I used to read about tons of these after life stories and I was pretty convinced, but not completely.
Then I almost died myself.
I was never pronounced dead, but I was close enough that I was given my last rites four different times by Catholic priests. The thing is, I was not raised religious. I wasn't indoctrinated to religion until I was about four years old, and then it was only very casually. When my mom married a Catholic man, when I was 7, I was pretty much converted to the Catholic church, but my earliest memories were about fairy tales.
I watched fairy tales on TV and movies. I heard them in books. I had tons of audio cassettes with fairy tales, mostly by the Brothers Grimm. One that I had that I remember listening to the most was Hansel and Gretel.
Interestingly enough, during my near death experience, I never saw anything like what people talked about in after life recounts. No bright light. At all. No peace. Nothing related to the Bible whatsoever. No fields of flowers. And not even hell like people recount.
Instead. I experienced being locked up inside a German looking house. And there was an old lady in the house. And she was planning to cook me for dinner.
And that was my near death experience. Didn't do much to increase my faith in anything, other than the fact that fairy tales might be too terrifying for small children. lol Just sayin.
That doesn't sound like an NDE to me. Sounds more like a dream or a nightmare, take your choice.
That doesn't sound like an NDE to me. Sounds more like a dream or a nightmare, take your choice.
I feel that perhaps he was near death, and perhaps he did experience something.
There are Buddhist NDEs and there were Hellene NDEs from ancient Greece and Rome.
There are also Hindu NDEs... and ones that confirm Muslim ideas.
Apparently there are also secular NDEs as that given by our O.P.
Near-death.com (warning, there is some Christian bias on the site... "E=mc^2 supports the bible since God is light and also God holds all things together.")
The some NDEs shows that science is replacing theistic religions as a true expression of spirituality. But people also seek community, which science doesn't seem to provide as greatly as it provides insight, revelations, comforts, and wellness... and they seek NDE that correlate to something they may want to be true, such as the presence of a good God, the existence of hell, "gay angels" etc.
The "Myth of Er" is the oldest surviving NDE report given by Plato about a soldier named Er.
Most religious NDEs experienced by atheists and agnostics reconvert them to their defacto birth religions or to adequete replacements which they were exposed to in childhood.
often NDEs share a character "Great Light" which could be merely a hallucination the mind must have in order to live, a demon tricking them to become more religious, or Jesus or Buddha or Krishna or a Muslim Angel or a Higher Self, etc etc.
My sister just told me about how amazing the book called "Heaven is for Real" is. I read the description of the book, and I'm just a little skeptical. Basically, the book is about a four year old boy who goes through surgery and then recounts that he went to heaven, met dead relatives, saw angels, etc. But then I read that his father is a pastor, and that kind of blew the whole thing for me. I mean, we are likely to dream/hallucinate what we are told about as a child, right?
That book has been thoroughly debunked. He said he saw his dad praying and his mother on the phone.Turns out, his father is always praying and his mother is always on the phone. They found pictures of his grandfather in the home, and the list goes on.
What I found amusing is that the angels refused to play the musical request of a small child (We Will Rock you) and insisted on playing hymns. Doesn't sound like a fun place, IMO.
The tunnel and the Great Light seems to be a ubiquitous theme. Who's to say that people aren't reliving their birth, with the trip down the birth canal, and into the great white light of the operating room? I think it's entirely possible.
Instead. I experienced being locked up inside a German looking house. And there was an old lady in the house. And she was planning to cook me for dinner.
And that was my near death experience. Didn't do much to increase my faith in anything, other than the fact that fairy tales might be too terrifying for small children. lol Just sayin.
Did you hear Hansel and Gretel when you were a little one?
Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to base all of my opinions of what Heaven is like on the stories of a little kid....either the kid that inspired Heaven is for Real, or your story. No offense.
I'm not offended, but did you just compare me to a four year old? lol I was 22 at the time. I think I made it through at least the concrete operational stage of development!
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.(1) and there is an element of cherry -picking the events that seem to fit. There is also the problem that they are generally uncheckable anecdotes and it is the old problem of demanding that unverifiable claims be accepted as true, simply because it suits believers. There are some indications in the research that this stuff is produced in the head. 'Voices' were once held up as angelic, but now are just considered a product of the brain (2) and the feeling of an angelic 'presence' is now also considered to be a product of the brain rather than a real entity outside. 
) but - rather like Creationists debunking hominid fossils by saying that they were either ape or man - they had trouble telling which was which. 
