Who has more credibility regarding Heaven and the afterlife...?

Question

...someone whose only experience is the third-hand accounts and hearsay of a bunch of Bronze Age goatherders, or the testimony of present-day atheists who suffered a near-death experience and came back to tell us exactly what they experienced (or didn't)?

In the absence of empirical evidence, who gets to be right?

BTW -- The "testimony" I'm referring to...:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aqkz_IKFyPve.rUeKMZgEOTpy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071212112251AARObgl

Answer 1

I'm assuming you are aware of the many theists who have had vivid NDEs in which there was some form of afterlife, so the question would be, why should we take an atheist's NDE account over a theist's?

Answer 2

As i'm reading this question i'm reminding by a story that Jesus told to His disciples. The story about the rich man and the beggar name Lazarus. However, in this story Jesus used real names, and he never said that this story was a parable...Anyway, the rich man requested that he be sent back to the earthly realm so that he could warn his brothers that this life after death is real and that there's a heaven (paradise) and a hell (hades) where he was being tortured and separated from God. and this how the conversation went between Abraham and the rich man (before the death of Christ):

27 Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' 29 Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' 30 And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' 31 But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.' "

So there it goes, many people who don't want to receive truth are in the darkness because they choose to be. Every man awaits their appointment of Death and on that Day they must give an account to Him that sits on the throne and judges. Let those who seek for truth hear with their hearts and those that love the darkness rebel and turn away.

Answer 3

Funny you would ask the demons believe and shutter knowing they have a short period of time.
We know that spirit creatures exist, people have felt their presence and some have seen them believing they are ghosts.
They are just messing with our minds. But if these spirit persons exist and they do, they must like us have had a creator.
They life is in heaven where ever that is.
But the earth he has given to the sons of men.
That to me sounds more credible. He made this planet for humans to live on and if you sin you go away.
Like he told Adam "for dust you are and to dust you will return." That just seems to make sense, that he would take the time to fill the earth with righteous people.
Kind of like weeding out the garden. Keeping the best plants.

Answer 4

To be honest, you have to recognize that Atheists are not the only people to have near death experiences in present day and that one person's experience does not invalidate another person's conflicting experience. Sorry. You reached too far with this one.

Answer 5

I'm afraid neither are credible sources. Both could be entirely false. NDE are largely the product of chemical reactions in your brain. What you see is not real.

If those are my only choices, I go with the NDE.

But I'd have to be a pretty good actor to pull off a convincing belief in it.

Answer 6

I don't think anyone does; if you're experiencing brain death, I wouldn't trust your interpretation of things any more than the pearly gates crowd.

Sorry to be so touchy-feely, but people just have to go with what feels right to them. By the time we have proof, we'll be gone and we probably won't even care any more.

Answer 7

What's funny is that it wasn't just atheists saying that there was nothing. Credibility is iffy, though. it's probably better to ask who has a better chance of being the least wrong.

Answer 8

The Atheists and their nde's. First hand experience out weighs the bible any day.

Answer 9

From my understanding..atheists are atheists because of two things..
1) they are unable and unwilling to accept the subjective reports of others divine experiences as real ( I have no problem with this btw..)
2) they can only rely on objective data..physical evidence to support stating that God exists..they're incapable of faith in something that cannot be proven with evidence.
I don't have a problem with accepting that either.

Now, I'm NOT atheist. I'm theist. I'm not going to try to convince you one way or another of any belief or concept of the afterlife. I just preface my answer with all that because I want you to understand I promote no agenda one way or another.

I think that you asking " in the ABSENCE of empirical evidence, who gets to be right" is a little SILLY coming from an atheist perspective since empiracal evidence is all that will convince another atheist..EVEN IF THE ATHEIST had what is known as the "near death experience" that many describe as a spiritual enlightenment, his report is one of subjective experience. If he had no sensation or experience during his near death experience, the report is still the report of a subjective experience.

Now if YOU as an atheist had that experience..you could either attribute it to an authentic subjective experience of Divine encounter..OR you could perhaps find biochemical brain reaction to describe it as Dr. Sherwin Nuland reports in one of his many books..( How We Die by Sherwin Nuland )

Subjective experiences CAN be real, or they can be delusion or they can be perceptions in various levels of consciousness brought about by electrohormonal impulse. That's just the thing about subjectivity..you can't prove anything to someone else with it unless you really trust the sanity of the reporter and you have a reason to either want to believe it or accept it as real.

As a nurse, I know that I MUST rely on subjective reports of patients to address very real physical needs. Pain is a subjective report. It produces substances called prostaglandins that actually impede healing. If I did not rely on the subjective reports of pain..I am not helping my patient to optimum healing potential. I cannot SEE their pain. I can see a grimace, but that doesn't prove their pain is real.

See the problem with this whole question?

It's the same problem that you have in every other area of religion and atheism..subjective reports aren't evidence..no matter if it is from an atheist or theist. Faith is involved in subjectivity..objective evidence requires no faith. One day perhaps someone will discover a method of taking the concept of Creator Deity beyond the realm of faith and into scientific inquiry if we can find some evidence to put to scientific method. Until that time..we're stuck with people who either take others words for truth of divine existence or have their own subjective experiences they trust (theists) and others who haven't had any convincing subjective experience of their own and don't trust anyone else's reports and need evidence (atheists)

shalom :)

EDIT TO SQUIRT...apparently my post wasn't quite understood by some. What would make the subjective report of an atheist any more "evidence" than the subjective report of a theist? Subjective experience is only "evidence" for the one EXPERIENCING the phenomena.

Note here, I am not giving any greater or lesser value to subjective experience of anyone. I merely understand that a subjective report is not "proof" of anything..either to prove the reality of any religion's dogma or to negate it. I see a lack of congruence of thought that SOME here appear to believe that the subjective reports of people who do not believe any deity exists are somehow more reliable than those who claim to have a religious belief. I don't understand how you can use subjective reports of atheists as "evidence" if you cannot reciprocate for theists.

Answer 10

I side with the first hand eyewitness accounts recorded in the Bible.
And what would occupation have to bear on it?
We see that God has chosen the humble of this world, and the foolish things to confound the "wise."