Just wondering, when you go into a coma, does God make a mistake and let you see Heaven early? I’m thinking no.
Let's ask Paul.
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows. II Corinthians 12:2
He saw heaven but had no idea if he was actually dead or not.
So it is apparently possible.
God does not make mistakes but sometimes He does allow us choices. Some choose to go on and die, some believe that they have things left undone and come back.
That’s a great point.
What set me thinking on a different tack and mystifying was one of Ben Breedlove's near-death experiences where he saw himself in a white suit looking in a mirror and was proud of the things he had done. Also Kid K somebody was there. I thought that rather odd and especially when I found out that Kid K didn't have any inkling about it. So it's a mystery.
Everybody reports something different. Jesus said "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." Does that mean that we make our own heaven (or hell) in our own minds? I don't want it to be like that. This world our minds interpret a common reality; I would hope the next would be the same only better.
Shimmery. I think the Evil One has extraordinary power in these times and we are warned that devils can appear as angels of light. So pink and blue clouds and shimmery beings don't sound very heavenly to me. I was kinda hoping for streets paved with gold ;-)
I don’t automatically believe nor automatically disbelieve what is called “private revelation.”
Hildegard of Bingen had them for over 70 years, and they weren’t “near-death” experiences either: they were intense visions that came to her, on and off, through all 5 senses, from age 3 until her death at age 81.
Even she did not consider them automatically worthy of belief, and for a long time didn’t know if they were a delusion or a gift.
I admire her sane and balanced point of view. God is capable of giving us visions; on the other hand, the brain itself is inconceivably complex, and capable of engendering convincingly fantastic other worlds.
But I want to ask the doctrinaire atheists this question: why and how would unaided materialistic evolution -— you know, that mechanistic process totally defined by survival and reproductive fitness -— have given us such powerful, apparently otherworldly, perceptions, capacities, and drives?
I ask you.