Radorth

Re: Bill

Maybe, but the skeptic Blackmore I posted the link to, admits they are much alike, but then says it that doesn't prove very much. I guess it depends a lot on how you define "alike." And it seems to me many skeptics argue they are much alike and can be consistently reproduced in a laboratory anyway. Obviously you can't have it both ways. I'm not disagreeing with you so much as saying that we don't know enough to form a hard opinion, and those who have hard opinions make too many easy assumptions.

Even if they are merely physiological, they are so incredibly different, so intense and cogent, that some theories become laugable- eg comparing them to a short-lived vision of a tunnel by pilots low on oxygen. Or saying the trigger repressed memories. People have repressed memories of flying around the earth? Of being wrapped in the most intense, infffable love? This is all some sort of defense mechanism? And you can reproduce all these with drugs and by cutting of oxygen? Piffle. Such arguments come from people just looking for excuses not to think IMO.

I'm not saying they definitely are not physiological. I am saying that while more similarities might strengthen some people's faith, neither similarities nor differences prove anything. It hardly proves they are not other-worldly because some people think the "light" they see must be from their God. People biased toward a certain religion would surely embellish them in favor of Jesus or Allah, or Muhammed some how.

The differences are what make them so fascinating and inexplicable. As I recall, some non-Christians see everything from Christ to weird little bureaucrats telling them a mistake was made, and they need to go back. Some people are radically and fundamentally changed, while some pass it off as a little scary, or just another experience they might tell a few friends about. Personally I think some of them sound fishy, while others may never be explained or reproduced. And of course some ex-skeptics who had a really life-altering NDE will NEVER be convinced it was merely physiological, that they had any such memories to trigger, or that pilots and lab subjects came anywhere near their experience.

I also find it odd that some venerable scientists have postulated a parallel universe, and yet skeptics would say nobody could ever have gone there, near to us as said universe might be.

Regards,

Rad

Radorth

Which was what? My limited experience with Hanegraaff is that anyone who disagrees with him was presumed to be sent from the devil, and I felt like his screeners made sure nobody who disagrees gets to talk to him.

Rad

Radorth

Here's some questions I find almost as interesting. Can we at least agree that for many people death will be an incredibly wonderful experience, for an average of 15 minutes, and for others, a most terrifying and horrible one? Is that fair enough?

If so, and if it turns out it is merely physiological, and we lose all consciousness afterwards, what makes that 15 minutes one way or the other? Could how we lived have very much to do with it? I think NDE evidence makes these questions worth pondering all by themselves, and makes some experience or other far more likely than not.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

I don`t know if it will last for 15 minutes,but I agree that people will have different experiences when they die. Some good some bad.
My Grandfather didn't believe in Jesus or any sort of afterlife and he died with a smile on his face. I was there at the hospital and witnessed it myself.

Quote:

If so, and if it turns out it is merely physiological, and we lose all consciousness afterwards, what makes that 15 minutes one way or the other? Could how we lived have very much to do with it? I think NDE evidence makes these questions worth pondering all by themselves, and makes some experience or other far more likely than not.

I think it's got a lot to do with what you think is going to happen when you die. My father fell through some ice when he was a little kid and claims he saw some dead relatives looking down at him as if coming to get him. It just so happens that this is excactly what his Catholic mother always told him happens when people die.

Maybe the mind sometimes goes off on it's own like while dreaming. I know that I often have dreams where I'm with people I've never seen before doing things I wouldn't even imagine doing while I'm awake. Is my brain just making up these people and experiences or is it an assembly of bits and pieces of memories of people and situations from TV shows and movies I've seen? Who knows.

This makes me wonder about that guy in the morgue. I don't even know if it's true or not,but lets assume he did have that experience. Even though he claims to have been an atheist,did he still go on his Judeo/Christian mystery ride simply because dying and what happens afterwards is so shrouded with religious ideas and imagery?
I'm also curious about what kind of atheist this guy was before this happened. Was he someone like my friend Nick and his entire family who don't believe in religion or God and don't even care to know anything about it.
(They of course know who Jesus and some of the other bible characters are and they know bits and pieces of some of the stories since it's utterly impossible to live in America and not hear bits and pieces about it. But thats the extent of their knowledge on the subject.)

Or was he an atheist like some of the people here who not only don't believe in religion or God,but actually know why it's extremely unlikely that a person could actually visit Jesus and the apostles at the last supper.

Mageth

Or saying the trigger repressed memories. People have repressed memories of flying around the earth?

Not necessarily just the triggering of repressed memories, but rather the mind constructing a "scenario" to explain what it's experiencing.

Of being wrapped in the most intense, infffable love?

Endorphins are wonderful chemicals, which tend to induce intense feelings of love and peace.

This is all some sort of defense mechanism?

A proposed explanation, which IMO is far superior to any I've seen you propose.

And you can reproduce all these with drugs and by cutting of oxygen? Piffle.

The brain produces all these with drugs (e.g. endorphins) and the cutting off of oxygen (which happens soon after the heart stops), so it's not too surprising that NDEs could be reproduced using the techniques that cause them.

Such arguments come from people just looking for excuses not to think IMO.

Bah. Such arguments illustrate a willingness to think clearly and objectively about the subject, and indeed some of them come from people who have actually done research on the subject due to their interest in it.

Automatically assigning a spiritual/supernatural explanation to them while dismissing the possible naturalistic explanations with a "piffle" is a clear demonstration of "not thinking", IMO. (Note: I understand that you aren't necessarily dismissing the naturalistic explanations, but the statements of yours quoted above sure comes close to it).

Jamie_L

I would like to throw my usual comments about NDE's into this mix:

The experience itself is purely internal to the individual, and as such it has no "time stamp" on it to prove when it occurred. There is no evidence to suggest the NDE actually occurred during the period of "death". It could have occurred before. It could have occurred after. It could have never really occurred, but just be a memory constructed after the fact that is unrelated to any real "experience" had by the conscious "self".

This doesn't argue against supernatural explanations, but it attacks the usual unspoken assumption made by supernatural NDE proponents: that the experience actually occurred during the period of "death". There's simply no basis to make that assumption.

Jamie

Bill Snedden

I can certainly agree with that. While I do think that similarity or difference may provide clues, they aren't answers. Moreover, I do think that knife can cut both ways: similarity could also point to a purely physiological origin (as the physical functioning of our brains is identical) and who says everyone's experience of the divine must be identical?

Well, I don't think of myself as casually dismissive of NDEs, but I do think that to the extent that some of these experiences can be reproduced in the laboratory, it does point strongly to a purely physiological phenomena. Intensity is, of course, a subjective measurement. What may appear as an intense experience to one person may seem trivial to another. It's just not a reliable metric. I think that the point is that the ability to reproduce some of the most general characteristics of these experiences is sufficient evidence to conclude that the more subjective characteristics are just that: subjective evaluation. While that certainly doesn't disprove anything, IMO it does justify a certain level of skepticism and somewhat higher expectation of evidence to warrant a different conclusion.

That sounds reasonable. I do think, however, that those who have an a priori belief in an afterlife might be predisposed to be a bit more open-minded about these phenomena than those without such a belief. Not to say that's wrong, but we do need to remind ourselves (on both sides of the issue) where our biases lie.

True, but that's the power and the puzzle of subjective experience. There's no evidence that could convince me that I don't love my wife, but I'll be damned if I can prove it (displays of affection can be faked!).

That as I understand it rests on a greater knowledge of physics than I have.

All that said, it occurs to me that the experience of NDEs would seem to contradict the Christian understanding of the "timeline" between death and final judgement. Aren't the dead supposed to be "asleep in Christ" only to awake at the second coming? Is the NDE supposed to represent a suspension of the normal experience of time? What would be a purely Christian perspective of the event?

Regards,

Bill Snedden

shifterknob

I read an article in Scientific American a while back (I'll see if I can find a date or a link) that postulated that NDE experiences may be a result of many factors, including the already mentioned endorphin effect, as well as possible neuron discharges that may explain the visions or images that we see. Neurons are much like organic versions of capacitors, and possibly, under certain circumstances, may "fire" off en masse, producing intense hallucinations. As scientists delve further into the human brain, they find that our brains are made up of relatively recent evolutionary constructs laid on top of older structures (i.e. the neo-cortex and the limbic centers are laid on top of the reptilian part of the brain, and this may explain why we react to extreme stress the way we do. Our brains are extremely complex electro-chemical computers, and we have only begun to map the process by which we think and act...

http://www.crystalinks.com/biobrain.html (1/3 of the way down the page "Scientist Says Mind Continues After Brain Dies")

http://leda.lycaeum.org/Documents/Us...nce.9260.shtml

http://www.angelfire.com/ms/perring/nde.html

Radorth

I've read both sides and am the only one to have posted both sides, including the research of Janssen. Neither side has proven anything, and I've never agreed that skeptics have a monopoly on objectivity. In fact their belief that they do is what keeps the majority of them from being objective and open minded- and the more they yak about it, usually, the less objective they are. I have no such belief about them or me. It is skeptics who believed in several evolution hoaxes for up to forty years.

Re, a more objective skeptic, who reminded us all to mind our own biases:

Well it isn't exactly crystal clear in the Bible. We are told Jesus, just before his resurrection, went to preach to the folks in Sheoul who seemed alive and well. Not sure how hard he had to poke them to wake them up.

Paul speaks of being surrounded by a "cloud of witnesses" which I presumed were watching me do my taxes, but he could have meant their example to us I suppose. Catholic doctrine seems to have them alive, else some Catholics have wasted a great deal of time praying to dead people. (No argument there, eh?). Did Paul know what those "asleep" might be doing? Did he mean both physically and spiritually asleep necessarily? (Some translations read "dead"). I imagine Christians disagree, as do my commentaries on that point. The question would be moot if indeed we enter some timeless dimension, which many NDE testimonies seem to indicate.

Rad

Radorth

Paul did "long to be absent from the body and present with the Lord" which is a good indication he mean physically "asleep."

Rad