What Happened When The Worlds Most Famous Atheist Had A Near Death Experience.

National Post | March 3 2001 | William Cash

[dubyagee]

I see no difference between what I experienced and what is being described by others in this thread.

What about the ones who aren't on drugs when it happens?

[dubyagee]

Two days before my mom passed, I awoke to her saying "Goodbye...goodbye." I asked her who she was talking to. She said the ship was sailing and she couldn't get on yet.

[js1138]

What about the ones who aren't on drugs when it happens?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Near death does not really mean much unless it involves oxygen starvation in the brain. Simply having one's heart stop is irrelevant if there is a mechanical method for pumping blood to the brain.

The effects of oxygen starvation are similar to the effects of some drugs. So I am having trouble understanding how you could have a near death experience without having something -- at least temporarily -- wrong with the brain.

Visions in the absense of any brain abnormality would be an entirely different matter. I don't have any pat answer for that, althought I can see why people would be really reluctant to talk about them. the first impression would always be that the person is nuts. But I'm not going to judge anyone without knowing them.

[Ignatz]

I suspect that these experiences trigger a "religious" part of the brain

Really!?!
Please explain why such a part of the human brain would exist?

[Ignatz]

Maybe you did die.
Ether can kill you, ya know.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

So I have been around many who were dying. I remember one lady on one of her last nights on earth reaching for the ceiling and saying "Pull me over, please pull me over."

My paternal grandfather died in the early 70s. Right before he died he suddenly sat up in bed and reached out for something. I think my grandmother asked him what he was seeing but he was already gone.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Ayer's article, with his vivid memory of being pulled toward a red light, "exceedingly bright, and also very painful,"

Is it just me or does this strike anyone else as not being a good thing?

[Salvation]

**What I Saw When I Was Dead, about his bizarre visit to the other side and how, as a humanist philosopher, it had affected his view of death.**

Will finish reading later.

[MarMema]

As he got older, Freddie realized more and more that philosophy was just chasing its own tail.

I loved this line. Thanks for the post.

[Some hope remaining.]

Nobody has returned from the dead since the resurrection of Christ.

Are you sure?

Mat 27:50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
Mat 27:51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
Mat 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
Mat 27:53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Note that the author, in writing after the fact, got a little ahead of himself in the telling and then added the clarification that this didn't happen until after Jesus' resurrection.

[texgal]

You are right. I completely forgot about these verses. Mea Culpa!

Thanks for correcting me.

[Oatka]

That was my sloppy term for that part of the brain, when stimulated, gives the person the feeling of a religious experience. Years back I read where neurosurgeons were able to recreate these experiences in just such a manner.

Put "NDE brain" in Google and check some of them out.

One of interest is at: http://skepdic.com/nde.html but there are probably more from scientific sites.

[GladesGuru]

"She was clinically dead WITH NO BRAINWAVES. In other words nothing was going on in her mind. No brain activity."

Your post made me think of the Terri Schiavo case where Mrs. Schiavo has a severely atrophied cerebral cortex, yet seems to respond to those around her.

As to where consciousness "resides", to the best of my knowledge that question has no answer at this time.

All in all, this brings to my mind the line in the Old Testament to the effect that "I put before you today both life and death - therefore choose life."

I fear we haven't begun to examine how we treat the dying in light of what we are beginning to know about human experiences at the threshold of death.

Are these reports just artifacts of the shutting down of the bodies chemistry or are they something else?

[Some hope remaining.]

No problem. It's pretty interesting, actually, to realize those verses are there and wonder why such a small mention is all there is. Especially considering they went into the city and appeared to many.

[Ignatz]

I think you may have misunderstood my question: Why is the brain capable of religious experience?
Years ago, I read an interview (Omni magazine) with some scientist or "brain doctor" of some type, who said that spirituality must exist because the mind was capable of spiritual experience.
According to him, it "wouldn't be adaptive" if there were no spirituality. It made sense to me, and certainly gave me pause to consider!

[Publius6961]

BUMP

[JudgemAll]

So you see, I tend to believe tales of people having near death experiences, of going to hell and being called out by female voices only to see their flesh being consumed.... I too had an indicative experience 10 years ago with my pneumonia, when I felt no pain all of a sudden and it was all calm, no fever, and I was floating along a dirt road, with bill boards on the left of pictures of starving Somalies ... with my cynical father's voice immitated, saying: "we surely are making too many children.", and I replied nothing, just astounded, almost feeling like to acknowledge.... and then I was all of a sudden swept around into a field nearby, and a dying brush of herbs lay there, a hand popping out the background picks it up and violently hits me on the head.... and there, I wake up, in fever and pain... knowing I went through near death, but not knowing to this day, WHO THIS VOICE CAME FROM (IT WAS SATAN WANTING ME TO LISTEN TO MY DAD! TRYING TO TELL ME TO AGREE AND GO TO HELL), and then, as I hesitated, I was honored to see the hand of God smacking me on the head with the last shrub of herb alive that I had not tended upon, but instead was made to think that making too many children was bad...

http://pub15.ezboard.com/fthefinalphasefrm18.showMessage?topicID=4651.topic

[Bellflower]

And so many people's brains with all of their different life experiences come up with the same things while in basically the same state??? Your theory if correct should have people,s experiences as varied as their dreams.

[Zeroisanumber]

And so many people's brains with all of their different life experiences come up with the same things while in basically the same state???

They don't. They first see a tunnel of white light, and then they dream up all sorts of whacked-out hallucenations including the usual: Dead relatives, Jesus, angels, etc. One guy in Philladelphia thought that he saw God and reported that God looked like Ronald McDonald.

The unusual thing is that the strongest beleivers in NDE are also people who tend to be fairly pious. Truly faithful people would understand that actual evidence of God or the afterlife would invalidate the true wonder of faith, and reduce us all to puppets carrying on a cruel play.