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Very simply, not everyone gets NDEs. Only a few do.
They don't fit everyone's religious views. In fact very rarely. The OP's father didn't see Jesus, and seeing dead people alive contradicts the Baptist view that people are dead as a stone until raised for judgment.
And seeing living people and dead people together contradicts everything. I always wondered about that part, how he saw someone who was still alive when they were dead. I wonder if the time continuum as we think of it does not apply in the spiritual plane. I don't know, just throwing out ideas.
No he did not see either Jesus nor God for that matter, at least not as tangible beings. He felt a presence.
You know, he participated in a survey that lasted some six-nine months by Dr. Bruce Greyson and others who'd had NDE's. Many of the questions had lead ins and scenarios that revealed the similarity between experiences to him. There is a basic pattern too common to be coincidence.
Perhaps, I am reading what you say incorrectly. You seem to be arguing that NDE are real. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. However, I presented information suggesting that people who were dead, near death, or deeply unconscious don't have the same experience that you claimed your father did. A logical mind would ask why and would seek an explanation. An illogical mind would simply blow this off as you have and reject any information that contradicts the paradigm they have constructed.
My belief is that what we call an "NDE" isn't supernatural at all. There are enough recitations of such experiences that I believe that a process or phenomenon is being described. However, I think the best explanation is that certain chemicals are present during stressful situations in the brain that trigger hallucinations. Drugs can play a role. I have a relative who believe she was being "chased by the Devil" who was taking certain medications at the time. I have a friend who was in a car accident and saw his life flash before his eyes. However, he was nowhere near death and had only a scrape or two as a result.
I can claim I had an NDE and saw the tooth fairy and she is real. You can't prove to me I'm wrong, using your logic.
Until people arguing these experiences are real can do a better job dealing with the points I have raised its hard to take them seriously.
Last edited by markg91359; 08-25-2013 at 09:58 AM..
I've asked many of my patients that have clinically died and come back over the years and most of them have said that there was nothing. I met a retied ER nurse that had a near death experience but she said the only thing she remembers is the feeling of flying back into her body and a rushing sound in her ears. I'm wondering if the carotid blood flow isn't what she was hearing after her blood pressure comes roaring back? If there is an after life then why isn't the NDE the same for every one? There are some potent drugs given during CPR, could they in fact be causing NDE's? Is it just misfiring synapses? I tend to believe that there is more of a scientific explanation for these events, but if not, I'm staying in this house and haunting who ever changes it to my disliking. Oh wait, are there dogs in the after life? If not. I'm not going!
I'd like to address some of the points and questions raised:
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359
If NDE are real than answer the following for me:
1. Why did my father have no memory of an experience where according to his friends his heart had stopped and he wasn't breathing (until he was revived) because of carbon monoxide poisoning?
2. Why does a close relative who has had several experiences where she went into insulin shock and passed out and was near death have no memories of that?
3. Why do I have no memories of surgery of being out of my body when I have surgery or a medical procedure performed with anesthesia that renders me completely unconscious?
4. Why do so many of these experiences neatly fit religious beliefs of the people who have them?
1. only about 10-15% of people who clinically die have these experiences. Scientists cannot explain why. But what makes these experiences worth studying--the ONLY thing, I might add--is that people who have them, when they're hovering above their bodies in spirit form and registering absolutely no brain or heart activity (and believe me, that's "DEAD" in any doctor's book) are still able to recount precise details for minutes of what on, who did what and who said what. This is not explained away by the chemical argument nor can it be. Chemical activity in dying moments or death when the body is totally flatlinned absolutely does not confer the ability of the dead person to see and hear what's going on around them. A second thing that makes them worth studying, though, is the similarities between millions of accounts from around the world, proving that there can be no collusion going on among experiencers.
4. This is somewhat true, especially in cases where the person is heavily indoctrinated into a particular fundamentalist belief system. Is it any coincidence that it is only fundamentalist Christians who see demons and devils and satan and experience going to hell? No, it isn't. The reason they do is because that's exactly what they were taught from childhood would happen to them and what they would see when they died. They have had this scenario grounded into their subconscious for decades. It's it so ingrained into their thought process that it cannot help but manifest itself at the time of death. Howard Pittman, Kenneth Hagin, Mary K Baxter, all dye-in-the-wool hellfire and brimstone preachers and believers naturally saw demons, hell and devils. Moderate Christians, agnostics and atheists with little or no knowledge or beliefs in such things NEVER see demons, hellfire, satan---all the trappings of a fundamentalist upbringing. In this sense we ourselves create the kind of afterlife we are going to experience. This fact is borne out by thousands of NDE's scientifically verified as accurate and truthful by Dr's like Greyson, vanLommel, Sabom, Long, and a host of others who say that what a person expects to see after they die most likely influences what they actually do see. There are exception, but most pleasant NDE's are experienced by agnostics, atheists and people who have absolutely no interest in the afterlife, while fearful, distressing ones are most often experienced by hardcore religious types. (to be continued)
... it seems the spirit survives the death of the body. Not only that, the spirit goes on to a place of unimaginable beauty, love, total acceptance and peace and lives in communities of like-minded spirits whose spiritual bodies are able to engage in pretty much all the activities they engaged in here on earth, yes even sex. ...
Anyone have any thoughts on NDE's and the spirit leaving at death to go to heaven? ...
I am deliberately avoiding the Religion forums because I don't want the taint of Christian Fundamentalism polluting this topic so let's keep religion out of it.
You do realize that your description of the afterlife and your belief in a heaven are religious beliefs?
"Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the supernatural, and to spirituality..." -- from Wikipedia article
You do realize that your description of the afterlife and your belief in a heaven are religious beliefs?
"Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the supernatural, and to spirituality..." -- from Wikipedia article
While I concur with your opinion, citing Wikipedia isn't particularly credible. Middle-school kids aren't even allowed to cite Wikipedia in book reports.
You do realize that your description of the afterlife and your belief in a heaven are religious beliefs?
"Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to the supernatural, and to spirituality..." -- from Wikipedia article
While I concur with your opinion, citing Wikipedia isn't particularly credible. Middle-school kids aren't even allowed to cite Wikipedia in book reports.
Not only that but descriptions of heaven, even belief in heaven is not religious, it's spiritual----and there's a huge difference. Atheists have these experiences and come away convinced there is an afterlife without assuming the trappings of organized religion. They might even stay atheist because in most cases they do not meet God or Jesus, just deceased relatives or other spirits.
Perhaps, I am reading what you say incorrectly. You seem to be arguing that NDE are real. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. However, I presented information suggesting that people who were dead, near death, or deeply unconscious don't have the same experience that you claimed your father did. A logical mind would ask why and would seek an explanation. An illogical mind would simply blow this off as you have and reject any information that contradicts the paradigm they have constructed.
My belief is that what we call an "NDE" isn't supernatural at all. There are enough recitations of such experiences that I believe that a process or phenomenon is being described. However, I think the best explanation is that certain chemicals are present during stressful situations in the brain that trigger hallucinations. Drugs can play a role. I have a relative who believe she was being "chased by the Devil" who was taking certain medications at the time. I have a friend who was in a car accident and saw his life flash before his eyes. However, he was nowhere near death and had only a scrape or two as a result.
I can claim I had an NDE and saw the tooth fairy and she is real. You can't prove to me I'm wrong, using your logic.
Until people arguing these experiences are real can do a better job dealing with the points I have raised its hard to take them seriously.
Look I am no expert on the subject and neither was my dad. Like I said in both my posts Dr. Bruce Greyson is an expert. Listen to what he said to the United Nations. I'm not asking anyone to believe anything. I really don't care if others are skeptics, or want to argue it's not real. All I did was relay what my dad experienced. All the things you brought up are talked about in great detail in Dr. Greyson's books and publications. He has spent 30 some years studying them, I haven't.
Dr. Greyson is co-author of Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007)[14] and co-editor of The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation (Praeger, 2009).[15] He has written many journal articles on the subject of near-death experiences, and these include:
Greyson, B (2005). ""False positive" claims of near-death experiences and "false negative" denials of near-death experiences". Death studies 29 (2): 145–55. doi:10.1080/07481180590906156. PMID 15822242.
Greyson, B, Ring, K. (2004). "The Life Changes Inventory-Revised". Journal of Near-Death Studies 23: 41–54.
Greyson, B, Liester, MB. (2004). "Internal voices following near-death experiences". Journal of Humanistic Psychology 44 (3): 320–336. doi:10.1177/0022167804266281.
Lange, R; Greyson, B; Houran, J (2004). "A Rasch scaling validation of a 'core' near-death experience". British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) 95 (Pt 2): 161–77. doi:10.1348/000712604773952403. PMID 15142300.
I've watched hundreds of videos on YouTube about NDE's. What strikes me most is two things:
1. their consistencies in what happens whether they are christian, skeptic, atheist, buddhist etc.
2. their superlatives in describing the other world; eg "a beauty beyond anything words can describe" "I felt a love so deep, so profound it's like love on this earth times a trillion".
Indeed, some have said we mustn't get carried away by these descriptions because if everyone understood exactly how wonderful the afterlife is we'd all be committing suicide to get there and that's a no-no.
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