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Goodbye Jesus

Nde's


Matt

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So on tuesday a show will be on tv called. 'Is Their Life After Death'. So ill watch it, but its a subject i touched on before my departure from Christianity. I was looking for a more 'love' approach to christianity i.e 'Universalist'. Anyway i read up on NDES and i couldnt figure out why they all varied so much. Most were about love, but some were negative 'hell' and other confirming the Christian beleifs. So did anyone do somer esearch on NDES and can anybody show me conclucions they have made, maybe with some supporting evidence. People like to beleive their is life after death that is of what we percieve as love. That is why i beleive people need/want religion.

 

http://www.nbc10.com/news/3253894/detail.html

 

I dont mind if theirs life after death, so as long as it isnt inline with the whole 'hell, punishment and doom' thing.

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read; the psychedelic experience, a manual based on the bardo thodol.

i think it has a great and very complicated theory into the esoteric workings of the mind.

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I think they are more than dreams because the experiencer feels it is real in a way that dreams are not. They have done brain imaging studies on people experiencing NDEs and they have found that they are quite similar to the experiences that psychedelics induce.

 

I read a book not too long ago that took a scholarly look at the studies that have been done on them, but I don't remember the name of it. Few areas of the brain are active during a NDE, and the ones that are NOT active give more insight into what is happening. For instance, the areas of the brain associated with creating an ego/self are inactive, as well as the area that orients us to space and time. Experiencing this, the brain would have no choice to but to interpret the experience as fading into nothingness/dissolving into God, with no perception of space or time. The nature of the experience was highly predictable by culture and religion that the person is exposed to. I'll try to find the name of the book sometime today.

 

 

 

That was easier to find than I thought:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/041528831...TF8&s=books

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http://www.near-death.com/

 

this should have all the info you need. And it's free :)

 

Oh I've always wanted to ask this. It's a stupid question but i have to do it. What does that yellow sperm thing with three tail that is in the christians/apologist avatar represent? Is it the trinity or something?

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I second the Near-Death.com website. I never was able to buy the overly-skeptical approach which basically says that it could be this or it could be that, anything other than a near-death experience. Those people need to stop saying what it could be and contribute more to helping find out what it actually is. This is a real phenomenon that is happening to many people, and writing all of them off as hallucinations or dreams is the scientific equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears, IMHO.

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I'm skeptical about NDE's though. Since they can be easily reproduced . Did you know that pilots have NDE's when they in those training modules. You know those things that spin around and around (I sound stupid but I don't feel like looking up the name). I doubt there is anything supernatural about NDE's.

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It's obviously wired into our brains to begin with, since so many things (dissociatives and psychedelics, that pilot thingie) can induce an experience. The question is if it's just a glitch or if actually has any real meaning.

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I'm guessing that you're right, but doesn't the front part, the triangular part, contain the Nazi Eagle?

Nazi Eagle normal_nazi-index_04.jpg

 

Apologist sperm thingie

fishes3clricon.gif

 

 

I see no resemblance :shrug:

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It's obviously wired into our brains to begin with, since so many things (dissociatives and psychedelics, that pilot thingie) can induce an experience. The question is if it's just a glitch or if actually has any real meaning.

I'm pretty sure if it had a real meaning everyone would have it. The tunnel is the only thing that happens to everyone and that is just your vision slowly going away.

 

here are some atheist NDE's. http://www.near-death.com/atheists.html

They are quite boring though. They either end up in hell and come back to be preachers or they go to heaven, talk to God, and then write a book about it. These atheist seem like they just stubbled upon a scheme to make money. Here is one for ya

 

I felt as if I were coming loose from my body! While I believed that my body was me, I knew instinctively that if I separated from it, I'd be dead! My soul and body started separating again and continued to separate until I felt a short, sharp pain in my heart, which felt as if something had been torn loose. Then slowly and softly I rose out through the top of my head.

 

Gradually the earth scene faded away, and up through it loomed a bright, new, beautiful world - beautiful beyond imagination! For half a minute I could see both worlds at once. The earth fading away, and the other world looming up brighter, and brighter, and still brighter! Finally when the earth was all gone, I stood in a glory that could only be heaven.

 

In the background were two beautiful mountains similar to Fujiyama of Japan. The tops were snow-capped, and the slopes were adorned with foliage of indescribable beauty. Since there was no pollution, haze, or other obstructions to mar one's vision, all the details were sharp and clear. The mountains appeared to be about fifteen miles away, yet I could see individual flowers growing on their slopes. I estimated my vision to be about 100 times better than on earth.

 

While I stood there marveling, I saw twenty people beyond the first trees, playing a singing-dancing game something like "skip-to-my-lou." They were having a hilarious time holding hands and dancing in a circle - fast and lively. Their singing, their laughter, and even their shouting was melodious.

 

As soon as they saw me, four of the players left the game and joyfully skipped over to greet me. As they approached, I estimated their ages to be: one 30; two 20; and one 12. Their bodies seemed almost weightless, and the grace and beauty of their easy movements was fascinating to watch.

 

As the heaven-people gathered around, the oldest, largest and strongest-looking man announced pleasantly, "You are in the land of the dead. We lived on earth, just like you, till we came here."

 

With unbounded enthusiasm I shouted, "This is wonderful!"

 

"It's marvelous!" they answered. Then with delight they told me how I could swim around in the lake as long as I pleased and when I came out, I'd be dry! Another one said, "You can run, jump, dance, sing and play as much as you want to and you'll never get tired!"

 

Then I noticed that the landscape was gradually becoming familiar. It seemed as if I had been here before. I remembered what was on the other side of the mountains. Then with a sudden burst of joy, I realized that this was my real home! Back on earth I had been a visitor, a misfit, and a homesick stranger. With a sigh of relief, I said to myself, "Thank God I'm back again. This time I'll stay!"

 

Then the oldest man, who looked like a Greek god, continued to explain. "Everything over here is pure. The elements don't mix or break down as they do on earth. Everything is kept in place by an all pervading Master-Vibration, which prevents aging. That's why things don't get dirty, or wear out, and why everything looks so bright and new. Then I understood how heaven could be eternal.

 

Next I noticed that I was loving everything and everybody and that it was making me intensely happy. Apparently only the good in me had survived. Without the bad, which is discord, I was happy beyond anything I had ever known.

 

My next question was, "How do you explain this intense happiness?"

 

Your thoughts are vibrations which are controlled by the Master-Vibration. It neutralizes all negative thoughts and lets you think only the good thoughts, such as love, freedom and happiness.

 

"Then what becomes of the old grouches?"

 

If they are too bad they go to a realm of lower vibrations where their kind of thoughts can live. If they came here, the Master-Vibration would annihilate them. After death people gravitate into homogenous groups according to the rate of their soul's vibrations. If the percent of discord in a person is small, it can be eliminated by the Master-Vibration; then the remaining good can live on here.

 

For example, if a person were 70% good and 30% bad, the bad could be eliminated by the Master-Vibration and the remaining good welcomed into heaven. However, if the percentage of bad were too high, this couldn't be done, and the person would have to gravitate to a lower level and live with people of his own kind. In the hereafter each person lives in the kind of a heaven or hell that he prepared for himself while on earth.

there was more but my bullshit meter was going off the deep end and I had to stop. Remember kiddies, always check your bullshit meter periodically. If it sounds to good to be true it probably is.

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I'm skeptical about NDE's though. Since they can be easily reproduced . Did you know that pilots have NDE's when they in those training modules. You know those things that spin around and around (I sound stupid but I don't feel like looking up the name). I doubt there is anything supernatural about NDE's.

I know there are ways to reproduce certain aspects of an NDE, but that doesn't mean that they aren't real. Just because you hallucinate something under the influence of drugs or anything else doesn't mean that there is no possible way it can exist otherwise.

If you guys want to believe a Xian website that is more interested in selling books than in science, that's your business. As I already told you, the vast majority of people who are very near death and do not die, report nothing happening to them. Nothing except unconsciousness.

 

Do your own research, and believe as you will.

I'd hardly call near-death.com a Xian website. :) It talks about the experiences of people from all religions and basically says that none of the religions are wrong. That's something you won't find on a Xian site.

 

And just because an NDE doesn't happen to everyone doesn't mean that those it does happen to are hallucinating. Some people have a lactose intolerance and can't drink milk, but not everyone reacts to milk that way. Does that mean that those with lactose intolerance are hallucinating or making it up?

 

I don't mean to be condescending or sound like I think that I'm the only one that's right, but I like to keep an open mind and think about these things, and these are some of the thought that went through my head. And skeptical arguments about NDEs just aren't very convincing to me.

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And just because an NDE doesn't happen to everyone doesn't mean that those it does happen to are hallucinating. Some people have a lactose intolerance and can't drink milk, but not everyone reacts to milk that way. Does that mean that those with lactose intolerance are hallucinating or making it up?

I may be wrong, but I believe this is a non sequitur. Lactose intolerance is due to the fact that realisitcally, we're not supposed to be drinking milk. We developed tolerance over time, and sometimes it doesn't completely manifest. As to NDE's, if what you mean is that people could concieveably be seeing their religion's version of the afterlife, or something like that, then the contradictory nature of religions as compared to each other would suggest that NDE's are indeed hallucinations, that not everyone has. But then, I can't think of anything that everyone has without exception. I think NDE's are real(like hallucinations are real), but they illuminate nothing regarding what follows death. In lieu of a better explanation, I would say that they are what has been hypothesized: the brain's synapes firing randomly in preparation for death.

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And just because an NDE doesn't happen to everyone doesn't mean that those it does happen to are hallucinating. Some people have a lactose intolerance and can't drink milk, but not everyone reacts to milk that way. Does that mean that those with lactose intolerance are hallucinating or making it up?

did you just compare a NDE to drinking milk :twitch:

 

NDE's and the people who believe them will say that their expierence shows that something happens when you die. But if it doesn't happen to someone who came close to a near death expierence what does that show? Where did they go? Did they not get as close to death as well as another person? Were they not bad enough to go to a temporary hell or good enough to go to a temporary heaven?

 

Unlike drinking milk, the lack of sickness that happens to those who drink milk is explainable. NDE's however have no explaination why a majority of people don't have them.

 

euphgeek, you and I have been on the site. I went to it during my liberal christian phase. It helped me believe in the universalist christian faith. But even I notice that it is a christian site. It's a universalist christian site whose majority of stories lean toward the abrahamic god (even the ones from other religions) while accepting the "their is more than one path to heaven" that universalist preach.

 

It still all seems fishy to me. I'm sure many have had expierences like this. But it is just the brain losing blood. To see if it is supernatural or explainable scienctifically you have to see if it can be reproduced. If you go to a center where they train pilots, you know they have a training instrument goes to different G-Force levels. Blood leaves the brain (or enters I can't remember) causing them to pass out and have supposed visions. If you want to believe this stuff to make you more comfortable with death you can but my BS meter goes off when I hear the following

 

1.Something that sounds to good to be true

2.Something that people are making money off of that sounds too good to be true (many of the people who have NDE's go out and write a book or become preachers)

3.Something that sounds too good to be true that can be explained through research and testing without quickly dismissing it to the supernatural.

 

NDE's just don't pass the test.

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And just because an NDE doesn't happen to everyone doesn't mean that those it does happen to are hallucinating. Some people have a lactose intolerance and can't drink milk, but not everyone reacts to milk that way. Does that mean that those with lactose intolerance are hallucinating or making it up?

I may be wrong, but I believe this is a non sequitur. Lactose intolerance is due to the fact that realisitcally, we're not supposed to be drinking milk. We developed tolerance over time, and sometimes it doesn't completely manifest.

Sorry. :) I was trying to think of something that not everyone experiences.

As to NDE's, if what you mean is that people could concieveably be seeing their religion's version of the afterlife, or something like that, then the contradictory nature of religions as compared to each other would suggest that NDE's are indeed hallucinations, that not everyone has. But then, I can't think of anything that everyone has without exception. I think NDE's are real(like hallucinations are real), but they illuminate nothing regarding what follows death. In lieu of a better explanation, I would say that they are what has been hypothesized: the brain's synapes firing randomly in preparation for death.

I, on the other hand, have found the dying brain theory of NDEs one of the least convincing ones. The main problem I have with them is that there have been people who were hooked up to an EEG machine and been flatlining while having an NDE. Now I know that EEGs can't pick up everything, but wouldn't it be able to pick up a hallucination? Especially ones as detailed as the NDEs people have described? There would have to be a lot of brain activity to react to and interact with the things that are reported to happen in an NDE.

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And just because an NDE doesn't happen to everyone doesn't mean that those it does happen to are hallucinating. Some people have a lactose intolerance and can't drink milk, but not everyone reacts to milk that way. Does that mean that those with lactose intolerance are hallucinating or making it up?

did you just compare a NDE to drinking milk :twitch:

 

NDE's and the people who believe them will say that their expierence shows that something happens when you die. But if it doesn't happen to someone who came close to a near death expierence what does that show? Where did they go? Did they not get as close to death as well as another person? Were they not bad enough to go to a temporary hell or good enough to go to a temporary heaven?

Just like not everybody who drinks milk has a reaction like those who are lactose intolerant. :)

Unlike drinking milk, the lack of sickness that happens to those who drink milk is explainable. NDE's however have no explaination why a majority of people don't have them.

Right. But before lactose intolerance was discovered there was no explanation as to why some people got sick after drinking milk.

euphgeek, you and I have been on the site. I went to it during my liberal christian phase. It helped me believe in the universalist christian faith. But even I notice that it is a christian site. It's a universalist christian site whose majority of stories lean toward the abrahamic god (even the ones from other religions) while accepting the "their is more than one path to heaven" that universalist preach.

Perhaps. But that is not a mainstream Christian belief. And Universalists are not considered Christians by many mainstream Christians.

It still all seems fishy to me. I'm sure many have had expierences like this. But it is just the brain losing blood. To see if it is supernatural or explainable scienctifically you have to see if it can be reproduced. If you go to a center where they train pilots, you know they have a training instrument goes to different G-Force levels. Blood leaves the brain (or enters I can't remember) causing them to pass out and have supposed visions.

See my post about the dying brain theory.

If you want to believe this stuff to make you more comfortable with death you can but my BS meter goes off when I hear the following

 

1.Something that sounds to good to be true

2.Something that people are making money off of that sounds too good to be true (many of the people who have NDE's go out and write a book or become preachers)

3.Something that sounds too good to be true that can be explained through research and testing without quickly dismissing it to the supernatural.

 

NDE's just don't pass the test.

Sheesh, everybody makes money selling books, even scientists. :) That doesn't mean that they're just using their experiences to make a fast buck. If that were true, nobody who makes money off the sale of a book would be credible, not even Brittanica.

 

As for quickly dismissing things to the supernatural, I think some people dismiss too quickly anything that challenges their worldview to hallucinations. That goes for religious people and atheists alike.

 

And I don't believe anything in order to make myself more comfortable. If I cease to exist after I die, I'm pretty sure I won't mind at all.

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It might be a different type of hallucination. the brain after all is preparing to cease function, and if you're right, that could mean the eeg is not detecting that low level or not set up to detect that particular activity.

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That's a possibility, I suppose. However, it falls under the same category as NDEs, since it's something not yet discovered or explained by science. :)

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^ I'd say that NDEs just aren't adequately explained by science. The current explanation is "It's just a hallucination" - which is pretty bare-bones and unsatisfactory as far as "explanations" go. That, and "hallucination" is used by science to explain a lot of things that don't have solid answers yet. It's their favorite "catch-all".

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I'd like to hear an NDE that you find to be credible. Another reason why it seems fake is because in every expierence they always see the people you've read, heard about or lived with. Never anyone new. Christians see Jesus, Buddhist see buddha, Athiest see there mommies. Americas will see angels since this whole country is obsessed with christianity (atheist and christians alike) and hindus will see Ganesh. You will never hear of an american seeing and elephant like creature with a human body and many arms. Tt just seems like your mind gathering information it already knows about while going into a euphoria state in order to make your death seem less tramatic. It really seems explainable to me.

 

So anyway can u tell me one that you find interesting or plausible?

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Well, the thing is that the ones who generally have NDE's of "going to hell and coming back" are christian fundies who believe those experiences "prove" the bible's claims about hell (as far as their interpretation at least). However, if their NDE is actually the real thing, then it disproves the bible's authenticity. Why? Because Luke 16's parable (which the same fundies believe) about the rich man going to hell clearly says that once a person goes to hell, they cannot come back to life to warn people about it (so they are proving the bible is false either way).

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^ I'd say that NDEs just aren't adequately explained by science. The current explanation is "It's just a hallucination" - which is pretty bare-bones and unsatisfactory as far as "explanations" go. That, and "hallucination" is used by science to explain a lot of things that don't have solid answers yet. It's their favorite "catch-all".

 

 

It's difficult to explain something where the only real testimony is from people who are clinically dead (not brain-dead) and then come back to life.

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So on tuesday a show will be on tv called. 'Is Their Life After Death'. So ill watch it, but its a subject i touched on before my departure from Christianity. I was looking for a more 'love' approach to christianity i.e 'Universalist'. Anyway i read up on NDES and i couldnt figure out why they all varied so much. Most were about love, but some were negative 'hell' and other confirming the Christian beleifs. So did anyone do somer esearch on NDES and can anybody show me conclucions they have made, maybe with some supporting evidence. People like to beleive their is life after death that is of what we percieve as love. That is why i beleive people need/want religion.

 

http://www.nbc10.com/news/3253894/detail.html

 

I dont mind if theirs life after death, so as long as it isnt inline with the whole 'hell, punishment and doom' thing.

 

WOW! I think thats pretty awesome. Even though I believe in Christ and the Bible and all, I still keep openness toward everything. This was really helpful to me. Thanks for posting this personally.

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Whenever I hear christians talk about NDE's they always entail a grandieose suburban neighborhood...

 

Now that would be hell for me.

 

I think an NDE is related to whatever the person believes in. My idea of heaven would be a huge multiplex that played all of my favorite movies for all eternity(and I would never get tired of seeing them over and over again)...

Some people choose the suburbs. While people who believe they are evil wind up thinking that they went to hell.

 

Granted, I believe in existence after death. However, I am not against the idea that the mind is a very powerful thing, capable of adapting to our desires and subconscious thoughts...

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^ I'd say that NDEs just aren't adequately explained by science. The current explanation is "It's just a hallucination" - which is pretty bare-bones and unsatisfactory as far as "explanations" go. That, and "hallucination" is used by science to explain a lot of things that don't have solid answers yet. It's their favorite "catch-all".

 

Amen to that.

 

I actually think that the fact that NDEs tend to be alike is a point in their favor.

 

I think it's highly possible if not likely that when we die we see what we expect. I personally believe in the whole personal-creation process, and so if you expect to see Jesus when you die, or Krishna, or whomever, that's who you will see. But we also can create only personal truths and not universal ones. So, you might see Jesus, but that doesn't mean Jesus is the only answer - just that during your life Jesus was your major link to the spiritual realm and thus represents it.

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^ I'd say that NDEs just aren't adequately explained by science. The current explanation is "It's just a hallucination" - which is pretty bare-bones and unsatisfactory as far as "explanations" go. That, and "hallucination" is used by science to explain a lot of things that don't have solid answers yet. It's their favorite "catch-all".

 

Amen to that.

 

I actually think that the fact that NDEs tend to be alike is a point in their favor.

 

How so?

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To show that we all go to the same place and go there the same way, that the body exits the body in the same way.

 

It's hard for a hardly-ever-speaking-and-therefore-word-unfriendly person like me to explain it, so I'll compare it to if everyone went through something different. If everyone went through a different experience, it would be similar to the hallucinations experienced in dreams and actual drug experiences - they may contain the occasional shared symbols but bear no close resemblence to each other. It would be easier then for me to accept that the NDEs would be hallucinations or the products of a failing system then.

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