Hi,

In another thread, Greyfort writes: "How could one person say they learned you had to follow Jesus, while others like Mellen-Thomas, or Nanci Danison came back learning that there never was a real Jesus walking around on the earth?"

There are two significant problems with the NDE. First, there's what Greyfort pointed out. The NDE doesn't appear to reveal objective truth. If it's all subjective, then the NDE doesn't tell us anything that's generally helpful.

Second, many NDE'rs say that they experience life reviews. They experience the results of their actions on others from those others' perspectives. They feel others' feelings, and so on. The problem is that that would do no good if the experiencer was a sociopath. Do you really think that Hitler cared about the feelings and thoughts and experiences of the Jews that he murdered in the most gruesome ways imaginable? Do you really think that a mother with borderline personality disorder would experience the permanent harm she inflicted on her daughter through a lifetime of physical and emotional abuse, and that that would somehow get her to change?

The NDE is told from a human perspective, but a human perspective applies ONLY if one has a human body, and its capacities: the capacity to feel emotions, see objects, hear sounds, taste, touch, and so on. Furthermore, the structure of experience--event A happens, followed by event B, and then event C--is dependent upon the physical constants and laws operating within the universe. Without a body and physical laws, what are you left with? Either nothing, or something so foreign that it's completely unimaginable and impossible to translate into human terms, as far as I can guess.

It may be the case that something of "us" survives bodily death, but the NDE is not good evidence for it. I believe that it's no evidence at all, but only an endless series of anecdotes, saturated with powerful emotions, with the intent of persuading others--a lot like how viral memes spread.

After decades of searching, I've found no real evidence to support surviving death. That doesn't mean that "we" don't survive. It means that I've found no credible evidence for it, and I've personally lost most of my hope. I suspect that if you have a parent that develops Alzheimer's disease, you'll see for yourself how human personality deteriorates along with the brain, and to the extent that you identify a person with his or her personality, you'll see, compellingly, that you're identifying a person with the operations of his or her brain. With no brain--at bodily death--then, how can one possibly survive and retain anything like one's human personality?

I defy anyone here who had an NDE to try to explain any of this.

Thanks,

Steve

I've never had an NDE myself and so I'm really limited in what I can say. Still, I'd love to hear anything else others have to say on the subject. Thanks for the insightful post!

The more you reasearch it, the more you realise that NDE's as evidence of survival after death is illogical. There have been numerous discussions about it on this board. From memory, here are some of the highlights:

1. Everything described in NDE's can be experienced WITHOUT dying.
2. If a soul records what happens from outside the body, then how does that data get transferred to the brain later?
3. How does a soul without physical form hear, when we know that sound is made up of moving particles of air?
4. How does a soul see, when we know that light is made up of electromagnetic radiation? Even if a soul is invisible then detecting light would cast a shadow.
5. In a hospital a message was written in a high place where patients could not see it unless they were floating near the ceiling. No-one who experienced an OBE in the hospital was able to identify the message.

I'd add # 6., touching on what Gay Philosopher mentioned. The inconsistencies.

I have several books on LDS NDEs and they all come back being assured that the Church is indeed true. While another Mormon lady had an NDE where she went to hell because she worshipped the wrong Jesus.

Others have come back saying they learned that Jesus didn't even exist, while others were held in his arms and felt his amazing love.

Not to mention the very different experiences of some Muslims, Hindus, or Jewish people.

It's not consistent at all. They all come back saying that they came back to get their message out to the world. Danion Brinkley and Betty Eadie are very strong messengers for Jesus. While Mellen-Thomas Benedict and Nanci Danison both say that the person Jesus never existed.

Yet they're all out there giving their very important message to the world in books and in seminars.

At least there is one common message and that is that love is all that matters, which is a nice message to give. But people coming back saying that you'd better get right with Jesus if you don't want to go to hell, that bothers me when it's taken seriously.