Photo source: Angel Studios.
Posted on 10/23/2023 9:09:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Photo source: Angel Studios.
I’ve just watched a remarkable, riveting documentary that releases in theaters on October 27 – After Death. It’s too bad the famous line from Hamlet has become a bit of a cliché — “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” — since it so perfectly captures what I took away from the film. There sure are a lot more things about reality than are captured by a narrow naturalistic view.
The message of the film, by directors Stephen Gray and Chris Radtke, is extremely well conveyed. It’s beautifully photographed, produced, and enacted, making use of actors and ordinary people who describe what they say happened to them while briefly dead, before being revived in a medical setting. No small number have died, only to be brought back thanks to advances in healing unknown to past generations. Of these, some number offer reports of an otherworldly realm, beyond yet somehow connected to our own. For those who go and come back, there is both joy and grief. Make of it what you will.
We meet doctors who have had the experience themselves or who carefully documented what others have gone through. There are lots of ways to die: A horrific car or airplane accident. A catastrophic health emergency. Attempted suicide by kitchen knife. A drowning. Each of these is followed by seeing visions that often, but I think not always, follow a pattern.
The “dead” person may see the room or other locale where he lies and observe actions by others going on around him. This is “autoscopy” — seeing yourself from outside, and reports of it have in some cases been objectively verified. More subjective (perhaps) are accounts of travel to a heavenly realm to meet loved ones who have passed on, and to meet God. Disturbingly, according to the film, 23 percent of near-death experiences (NDEs) are not of heaven but of hell. “One of the scariest moments in my life,” says one man. (Only “one of”?) “A pit of despair and hopelessness,” says another.
The interviews are fascinating. The subjects describe being, while dead, “more alive than I’ve ever felt,” ““conscious and then more conscious,” immersed in “an ocean of love.” Some are anguished to realize they’ve been returned to our earthly existence, from their true home, against their will. Nor is everyone who comes back necessarily improved by the experience, at least not at first. A man who died with his life disordered felt he went down to hell, then was rescued by Jesus. He wished to share what he learned with others but became, in his own words, a “zealot” who alienated everyone around him. A neurosurgeon recalls talking with a patient who, after being medically dead, recounted details of her autoscopic experience. “As she spoke,” says the surgeon, “I became spooked.” That makes two of us.
The filmmakers plainly wish to give hope for the hereafter, and no doubt with many viewers, they will succeed. But After Death is not a simple vehicle for that. Parts of it are scary and disturbing. While generally appearing to reflect a Christian perspective, the theology here, insofar as it’s articulated, doesn’t clearly match any one recognizable religion. The heavenly imperative seems to be, above all, that humans in their lifetime on Earth should love each other. That makes sense to me, but I’m not sure that it’s an orthodox view, or more of a modern one. Being modern doesn’t mean it’s not true. It’s suggested, also, that these experiences are cross-cultural. It would be interesting to know what people outside the American context report.
One could ask other questions, like why is the information imparted here, while pertaining to ultimate matters, conditioned on something wholly worldly like advances in life-saving medical techniques? And if God is love, indeed an “ocean of love,” and if that figure of 23 percent is meaningful, how can it be that he sends approximately one quarter of humans to hell?
For audiences, there will be much to discuss afterward. For the materialist, in particular, there is a great deal to ponder and to try to explain in naturalistic terms, if he can.
I think I’ve said before that I believe I’m forgiven as I believe in my Lord & Saviour Jesus who sacrificed and bled for me and all of mankind that we might be saved.
Yet I’m often wracked with guilt that I can’t be less of a sinner and I basically helped cause him into that measure to save his creation from itself.
Paul said he was frustrated that the things he didn’t want to do, he did, and vice versa.
Exactly- The Holy Spirit works in Everyone’s lives- all throughout their lives- He even works i n the lives of those that God knows beforehand will reject Christ- so that in the end NO man has the right to say ‘they didn’t know’- They knew- —they knew— that something wasn’t right, yet they chose to ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit- Those who knew that something wasn’t right and who yearned to find out what that something was- God makes sure they hear the gospel and can come to Christ- Especially in these latter days where the gospel is worldwide now-
Heathens growing up in a society where “Anything Goes” KNOW deep down inside that it’s not right=- They KNOW because there is a universal moral code written on each and every person’s soul- Sadly though MANY will choose to harden their hearts against the work of the Holy Spirit i n their lives and will instead choose to reject Christ as will their children- Their children are not tricked into accepting their parent’s ‘religion’- They don’t have an absence of the Holy Spirit workign in them- but they choose to ignore Him and to accept something else- The Holy Spirit will continue his work all through their lives, and they will have no one but themselves to blame for rejecting Christ
God will rightly be able to tell them when He meets them at the judgement “I gave you warning after warning after warning, yet you chose to ignore them all and harden your heart against Me. I gave you enough evidence all around you as proof of my existence- Sadly you rejected them all, and felt they were foolishness-”
I actually got worse after my hell experience caused by the NDE- for about 2 decades i was an idiot- then i smartened up (Although some woudl dispute that)- and the Stupid thing is that God had given me a second chance— actually a third chance at life- and i blew it big time- and now I’m suffering the consequences of my actions while i was a moron-
I’m not sure if the NDE had anything to do with my turning my life aroudn or not- perhaps- but i think a greater influence was just the Holy Spirit finally getting through to me to where i realized how badly i had treated God after he saved my life and gave me that second chance-
The wonderful thing about God is he keeps giving you chances.
Of course, these kinds of issues should not distract from the larger point that sin and Hell are to be avoided and God's grace sought and embraced.
When I was 10, I was at summer camp and had this one counselor who told us the story of her descent into Hell after an attempted suicide (pills + alcohol). She descended into a cold darkness where she couldn’t see anything at all and just the sensation of suffocating pressure on her and despair all around. She kept having the sensation that someone was nearby. She finally spoke out to the “being” and I can’t remember the whole story, but it was basically that this being/angel? was there waiting for her to ask for help. The second she did, she was brought up and out and back into her body, where a friend had found her and called paramedics who were resuscitating her. I still remember that conversation (although I’ve lost parts of it) and it was over 40 years ago.
We might think that, (and is a nice happy thought, too) but doesn't comport with the Word of God.
By it's very meaning truth is exclusive - there can't be "many" truths, only one.
A person, having free-will either believes what the Word of God says or believes in a truth that he himself manufactures.
I am not God, I believe what He says about the nature of reality, and of life and death.
"Today is the day of salvation..."
Permit me to make a point here that reflects both Catholic sensibility and Protestant thinking. Even as it is important for us to try to practice Christianity in a truthful way, we should not make it into a hard test that permits only the best to pass.
Or, to put it another way, I believe that Jesus means for salvation through Him to be generously offered, broadly available, and rarely if ever refused. Faith in Christ matters most of all, with details and doctrine far less important though than having a Christian heart and spirit and practicing Christian virtues as best we can.
To get back to the example of the atheist professor who was scornful of Christianity, he was saved because after died and his soul was being dragged into Hell, he called on Jesus for help -- and he was saved. Jesus did not refuse the man for his faults and sins and lifetime of scornful disbelief. Jesus saved the man because, on the brink of damnation, he declared his faith and asked for help.
There are Catholics and Protestants who may be unsettled by the professor's account and reject it. After all, many seem to think that Judgment will include a detailed examination of the specifics of Christianity, a kind of grand final test, with Hell as the punishment for wrong answers.
No, I am confident that what Jesus said is true: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live." And so the atheist professor was saved when he declared his faith in Jesus.
Absolutely. If we didn’t have free will, we woupd,c9mplain that we had no choice, but we do have it, and God honors our free will choices one way or the other.
[[She descended into a cold darkness where she couldn’t see anything at all and just the sensation of suffocating pressure on her and despair all around]]
That was my 3xperience too- only it wasn’t cold, but unbearably hot (due to the fever I had no doubt). I too spoke out, after I failed a test God gave me (which proves that the nde wasn’t biblical at all), and the voice told me not to worry, that I didn’t exist, and that is when I felt a deep deep despondency as I was cast into the outer darkness where I didn’t exist in body, but where I knew I was all alone forever- it was more frightening than the “hell” I had descended to.
Mind you, I never knew anything about outer darkness, hell, or anything at that point- it was an experience that frightened me so badly that I grabbed ahold of the doctor who had revived me and told him he needed to accept christ so that he didn’t experience what I had just gone through.
I know now that the ‘experience’ was very likely misfiring synapses because what happened was not biblical (ie the test by God to see if I would remain in hell or not), knowing ehat I onow now, it’s pretty clear that Satan tried to discourage me by making me believe I had gone to hell despite. Being born again. And he really did cause me some really awful doubt for a long time after that.
I do beleive that nde’s, whether an actual event or one that is conjured up in the mind because of misfiring synapses, that Satan can and likely does use them to keep people blind to God and his word- the unsaved person who “sees the light, and their loved ones in heaven” are very likely to convince themselves that they must be a Christian, and never seek salvation because of it because they wrongly feel that they had a “special message from God” when in fact it was the opposite.
You will find many of the usual objections and answers to those objections here- the fella is a deep deep thinker, and covers many topics and objections head on- even the ones you stated in your post
https://christianthinktank.com/
Have you ever seen the movie “Wristcutters?” It was a little independent film years ago that starts off really dark but by the end turns very optimistic. It’s about a sort of Limbo that suicides go to…the main character, Zia, has killed himself by cutting his wrists and wakes up to find himself in a place that is “just like real life, only worse.” The movie then evolves into a Buddy road trip theme where he travels with other suicides to try to find his ex-girlfriend, who has also “offed.” On the way, they pick up a hitch hiker, Mikal, who is trying to find The PIC (People in Charge) to inform them that she is here by mistake because her heroine overdose was accidental.
yes, the movie misses opportunities to talk about the effect such a selfish act has on those left behind, but it focuses on these extremely narcissistic characters who start to come to realizations by the end. Plus, Tom Waits has a cameo and the music is by Gogol Bordello. It drives home the point that the Hell we experience in real life is all a creation of the mind.
Your question is valid, however, it is based on the incorrect assumption that some people “don’t know”.
While C.S.Lewis addresses this topic fully in many discourses, here’s what God’s Word says. All people, from the beginning of time, are without excuse. God has made Himself plain to them. Everyone knows, but in their desire to be evil, they reject God and suppress the truth they already know. The very creation itself testifies to all of the Creator.
Romans 1:18-20
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
Submitted to you respectfully...
So beautifully stated.
Thank you.
And thank You Lord.
Tatt
Actually there is a mention of hell visit in the article
Thanks- I never saw the movie- Sounds like a great subject for a movie though- certainly a unique story-
Various religions, including some Christian thinkers, consider hell not everlasting, but more like a penitentiary, to be punished, and learn.
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