Posted on 01/21/2010 6:27:18 AM PST by marshmallow
In new book, he says that near-death accounts transcend cultures and ages
The near-death experience story is so common that it has become a bit of a cliché: A medical patient, hanging in a murky limbo between life and death, is drawn through a tunnel of bright light, meets their maker, and is told they must return to the land of living.
But that scenario played out letter-perfectly for Mary Jo Rapini. And her story is getting firm backing by a doctor who has studied some 1,300 near-death experiences. Medical doctor Jeffrey Long chronicles Rapini’s story, along with his own research, in a new book: “Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences.”
In the book, Long contends his study shows that accounts of near-death experiences play out remarkably similarly among the people who have had them, crossing age and cultural boundaries to such a degree that they can’t be chalked up simply to everyone having seen the same Hollywood movie.
Through a tunnel
Appearing with Dr. Long on TODAY Wednesday, Rapini related her near-death experience to Meredith Vieira. A clinical psychologist, Rapini had long worked with terminal cancer patients, and when they told her of their near-death experiences, she would often chalk their stories up as a reaction to their pain medication.
But in April 2003, she faced her own mortality. Rapini told Vieira she suffered an aneurysm while working out a gym and was rushed to the hospital. She was in an intensive care unit for three days when she took a turn for the worse.
“All of a sudden [doctors] were rushing around me and inserting things into me, and they called my husband,” she told Vieira.
“I looked up and I saw this light; it wasn’t a normal light, it was different. It was luminescent.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.msnbc.msn.com ...
In 1994 my wife contracted viral meningeal-encephalitis. Early in her 14 days in ICU she coded but was brought back to life. Several months after recovering I asked her what she remembered of the experience. Among a lot of other details, she talked about the overwhelming feeling of love. She said she was given a choice of staying or coming back to us. She said even though her overwhelming urge was to stay, she realized that I would be left with raising our three children, who were 12, 9, & 7 at the time. Thank God she chose to return to us. I consider her decision to be the ultimate expression of her love for our family.
I think that encountering God on this plane (like Moses and the burning bush) is not the same as coming before Him at His throne of grace.
I've been pondering this most of today (I'm in my office, sooo I've got "distractions"), and thinking about all of the encounters we (humans) have had with the Living God over the millenia, and there does seem to be a little difference when it's down here (unlike Isaiah is ch. 6 or John in Revelation) - Jesus speaking to Saul on that Damascus Road, etc.
"r9etb", I want to take some time to study this, how and why it is different - thanks for the exchange and for giving me to ponder.
Have a blessed day.
Thank you for sharing your experience and sincere sympathy on the loss of your little boy.
I'd just leave you with something I've learned the hard way over the past couple of years.
Scripture is a wonderful thing, and discussing and defending Scripture is often necessary. There really are people whose actions must be countered through its use; and whose understanding of Scripture needs to be corrected.
But sometimes we can get so wrapped up in our defense and arguments that we forget the basic difference between Scripture and God. Jesus spells it out in John 5: You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
I'm not accusing you of that sin; rather, I'm recounting the lesson that I had to learn, which was that when defending Scripture and debating theology, it is all too easy to lose sight of the real point, which is nothing more or less than God's love for us. It has to be accounted for -- and it changes the logical and theological basis of a lot of the arguments one commonly sees, sometimes to the point of making us change our position on a matter.
To win the argument at the expense of losing sight of God's love (and that's how religious controversy always seems to end up...) is no victory at all. The image of Christianity we present to the world in such fights is one of ugliness and conflict -- precisely the opposite of image of Christianity that we would want to convey.
I think the distinction between prophetic encounters (and in that I count the sorts of personal contact you and I might have with the Holy Spirit) is really only a matter of degree, rather than kind, from the type of contact described in these experiences.
That's why I reacted to your initial post ... it seemed to raise Scriptural argument over a phenomenon which I think is probably real, and amazingly hopeful not just to those who have the experience, but also to those of us who hear their stories.
bookmark
“Saul of Tarsus no doubt had Divinely-inspired visions of heaven, but did not claim to actually meet God face-to-face.”
Corinthians 15
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, HE APPEARED ALSO TO ME.
No he is not, if you know Greek. Besides, that conversation never took place because in Aramaic it would not be a pun (it's not in Greke either, except by a stretch).
Thanks for the ping!
I have often wondered why there is nothing at all in scripture from Lazarus. I mean, wouldn’t you imagine he had a lot to say? I guess it was not considered important enough to write down, but that has always seemed odd to me.
As for Judgment Day, there are various explanations, one side is that we are *dead* until the end and then we wake up (so, to us it would feel immediate, but wouldn’t explain an experience of going into a light upon death since these people come back here and now). The other side is that our souls go somewhere while our bodies are dead and we get new ones later.
I personally think (but what do I know, this is just supposition) that God and Heaven are outside of time as we know it, and so to us, we die and we are immediately judged, because everything has already happened. I admit, this is hard to get my mind around, but it makes some sort of sense to me.
I like the *idea* of people dying and coming back, but I don’t think really jibes with scripture, since the vast majority of them have a pleasant experience and don’t want to leave (unless of course the light is Lucifer, who comes as an Angel of Light).
I hadn’t thought of that...
...or no coming back, just the welcome matt.
Good point! If the life you lived had been bad enough to condemn you to hell, why would you be sent back to carry out more evil?
You went to the Hell for hot naked women?
Self-ping for later.
The lives we ALL live are bad enough to condemn us to hell. Every last one of us.
It is only by the cleansing of the blood of Christ that we are redeemed and given the gift of eternal life in heaven, should we accept that gift.
No, English uses commas. Translators misplaced it.
English uses commas, not Greek. English translators inserted the comma where they thought it should be and quite possibly were wrong.
...how in the world could a translator misplace what was not there originally?
One cannot misplace something that does not exist.
=)
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Are you being ntentionally rude?
We’ll try this again ...
We both agree that koine Greek has no punctuation
You claim the comma (punctuation) was misplaced
I replied that you cannot misplace something that does not exist
You then call ME obtuse
you’re projecting or unable to grasp what is plain and obvious
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