For all of you who choose to discredit Heaven and the afterlife...?

Question

how do you explain near death experiences? When people can tell you exactly what and who they saw? What they felt and what it was like? Please do not give me the whole lack of oxygen thing. I have worked in the medical field for a very long time and can tell you, I have seen things that just CANNOT be explained by man or science.

Answer 1

LISTEN TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THE WORDS. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SEE? WHERE DOES THAT FUNCTION COME FROM? THE BRAIN. WE UNDERSTAND ABOUT 12% OF HOW AND WHY THE BRAIN FUNCTIONS. UNTIL WE KNOW ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT THE BRAIN, WE CANNOT ANSWER THOSE QUESTIONS. YOU CANNOT SIT THERE AND SAY WITH ANY CERTAINTY WHAT YOU OR THOSE PEOPLE SAW, BECAUSE YOU LACK UNDERSTANDING OF THE BRAIN. NO, WE CURRENTY DON'T HAVE A REASONABLE EXPLANATION FOR THOSE THINGS, BUT NOT KNOWING DOESN'T MAKE IT OF DEVINE ORIGINS. WE THOUGHT THE EARTH WAS FLAT AND WAS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE FOR A LONG TIME TOO, BUT THAT'S BECAUSE WE LACKED THE INFORMATION AND THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THAT INFORMATION. AGAIN, THERE'S NOTHING DEVINE ABOUT THAT. ALSO REMEMBER THAT....The Brain is Fallible
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
- Albert Einstein
The brain is a biochemical computer of sorts, but it is subject to errors. Gross errors. It forgets things. It learns things the wrong way. It unconsciously acquires biases. It makes mistakes, and this is a vital point, because it leads to an important and reasonable idea, checking for mistakes. We have a fancy name for that called scientific method, but it's not much more than checking your work and asking other people to check your work before passing along any conclusions. The corollary is that not checking for mistakes is asking for trouble. An important feature of religion is that it is actually against "the rules" to check for mistakes, or worse yet, to point them out.

Not checking for mistakes leads to superstitious behavior, like "I need to wear my lucky socks today" or to even more complex and dangerous superstitions like religion.

Based on the observations of some chimpanzee researchers, we may not be alone, species wise, on this kind of semi-complicated belief based superstition. There is a tribe of chimpanzees in Africa that appears to believe they can stop the rain by dancing.

The Brain is Subject to Delusion
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
- Saul Bellow
The ability to imagine, to create and explore new ideas in our heads, is perhaps our greatest strength as a species. However, it is simultaneously our greatest weakness, the problem being that we sometimes have trouble distinguishing our imaginings from reality.

You may say you have no problem telling fantasy from reality, but you'd be wrong. Every night, you are completely fooled by not one but several multi-sensory fantasy worlds of your own creation, or dreams, as we like to call them. Even during the day, you may find yourself taken away to some other place, some world of your own ideas, only to find yourself in the middle of a boring meeting with someone snapping you back to reality saying, "hey, where are you?"

We can induce the no longer quite so mysterious "near death experience" with the drug ketamine, or by applying an electromagnetic field to the temporal lobe, or even, as has been discovered in the case of fighter pilots, putting them in a centrifugal trainer until they black out. We have accounts going back thousands of years of people having religious experiences while taking various hallucinogens. It's just the way the brain is wired. Also, there can be serious problems with the wiring itself. We know that things like temporal lobe epilepsy and schizophrenia can lead to delusional religious beliefs.

So we find ourselves with an error prone mind subject to fantasy, which leads to some pretty amazing places. My favorite Oliver Sacks story is about a patient with a large brain tumor. The man was blind, but believed he could see. No amount of rational thought could dissuade him. He couldn't understand why he was being taken to Braille classes. An extreme example of delusion, but one we need to take to heart. As a species, we are pretty good at pulling the wool over our own eyes.

Answer 2

Actually...you`re question makes perfect sense to believers..but to unbelievers, it can be either picked apart..or just ignored..When the subject of the supernatural is brought up..dis-belief is the first reaction by most..One of the best ways to confront dis-belief of the supernatural, is to use something tangible..For instance, Argon Gas, cannot be sensed by the Five Senses..It cannot be touched, seen, smelled, tasted, or heard(unless it is compressed)..therefore, according to all of the Senses that we possess, it does not exist..and although our Senses say it is not there, it can kill you..several other Gases are the same, and just as deadly..So, just because one has never "Sensed" the Supernatural with one`s own Senses, it would be extremely foolish to "assume" it is not real...Things of the Supernatural can be deadly too...I am a Born Again Christian(22yrs.), and an experienced Excorsist..and I`ve seen unbelievers tossed several feet across a room, by something that they were so sure, didn`t exist..If it wasn`t so serious...I would`ve laughed.

Answer 3

I'd honestly choose Odin, as Valhalla sounds a laugh (sizzling and bloodless going for walks Valkyries, woohoo!) however given the alternative among the 2, I'll take Zeus...an eternity of praising an egotistical deity does not draw in me in any respect. At least Zeus knew how you can get down...

Answer 4

Your mind is a storage of many informations you gather along the way, If you are a Buddhist and Christian religion have not been introduced to you, your near death experience will definitely have something to do with the belief that you grew up with. You will see Buddha or whoever is the one you learned as the greeter will definitely be what you see in your experience.
Every religion have their own concept of heaven and oftentimes it is not the same as to what it is and how it look.
It is impossible for you to expect Jesus or his saints appear to someone who have no concept of who and what they are. Science has a lot things to explain to that and whatever is experienced by the patient, the truth is his own truth that may not serve true to people with different belief and exposure.

Answer 5

Sure. You have some weird dreams when you deprive your brain of oxygen. Perhaps you ought to wonder why things match the beliefs of the person and aren't consistent across the world.

Answer 6

Actually there are very interesting articles on this regarding the effects of trauma on the mind...

according to your logic drug addicts have intimate visions with God.

Answer 7

People see things when their brain starts to die. They didn't die so there is no reason to believe it was an afterlife.

Answer 8

people lie....I can tell you a near death story too...it would be a complete fabrication but you would probably believe it...

Answer 9

Wow. Spooky. I am a believer now. You are good.

Answer 10

Ever had a dream so lifelike, that you could swear it was real?