Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Who Says There is No Proof of Life After Death?
The Christian Diarist ^ | August 9, 2015 | JP

Posted on 08/09/2015 12:20:13 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST

Ivan Turing is a tech billionaire. Dr. Carolyn Tyler is a cardiothoracic surgeon. Their divine appointment informs the plot of “Proof,” a dramatic series with decidedly religious overtones, which airs on TNT.

Turing, played by the actor Matthew Modine, is terminally ill. He wants to know whether there is life after death. So he recruits Tyler, played by the actress Jennifer Beals, to investigate.

The surgeon reluctantly agrees. But only after the billionaire (who bears a striking similarity to the late Steve Jobs) makes her an offer she can’t refuse – leaving his vast fortune after he dies to the hospital where she practices.

Turing chooses Tyler because he secretly knows the surgeon’s back story. She is one year removed from the accidental death of her teen-aged son. And she herself had a near-death experience (NDE) when traveling abroad on an ocean liner that capsized during a tsunami. During her NDE, Tyler saw her deceased son reaching out his hand to her, welcoming her to the afterlife. But later she attributed what she experienced to hallucination.

That’s how those without a faith life, those skeptical of life after death, explain away evidence of the hereafter. But those of us who are Christ followers know better. For the Scripture tells us that God “has put eternity in (our) hearts.”

And as to skeptics who insist there is absolutely no scientific evidence of life after death, they are dead wrong.

Indeed, scientists at the University of Southampton spent four years examining more than 2,000 patients who suffered cardiac arrests in 15 hospitals in Great Britain, the United States and Austria. It was largest ever medical study of near-death and out of body experiences.

In findings published last year in the journal Resuscitation, the scientists reported that nearly 40 percent of those who survived described some kind of “awareness” during the time they were clinically dead, before doctors restarted their hearts.

One particular patient, a 57-year-old man, recalled leaving his body entirely and watching his resuscitation from the corner of the operating room. Despite being “dead” for three minutes, he recounted the actions of the nursing staff in detail and described the sound of machines in the OR. That cannot be attributed to anything other than life after death, suggested Dr. Sam Parnia, who led the study. “We know,” he said, “the brain can’t function when the heart stops beating,” as it did in the cases of those who suffered cardiac arrest, who lived to attest to their near-death experiences.

The Southampton study corroborates the testimony of Dr. Eben Alexander, the Harvard-trained brain neurosurgeon who authored the 2012 book, “Proof of Heaven,” which topped the New York Times bestsellers list.

Like the fictional Dr. Tyler, the real-life Dr. Alexander was skeptical of near-death and out-of-body experiences, dismissing them as figments of the imagination of medicated patients.

Then, Dr. Alexander contracted a severe case of bacterial meningitis, which put him in a coma for seven days, during which, he said, he experienced the afterlife. Like the “man in Christ,” according to the Apostle Paul, who either “in the body” or “out of the body,” he didn’t exactly know which, was “caught up to the third heaven.”

The third heaven, to which Paul referred on second reference as “Paradise,” sounds very much like the heavenly realm Dr. Alexander visited during his coma. In that realm, wrote the neurosurgeon, “Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything.”

Indeed, Dr. Alexander continued, “This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or will ever exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.”

That is what awaits the Christ follower on the other side of the grave. And to one who has faith, no further explanation is necessary. And to one without faith, no plausible explanation is possible.


TOPICS: Current Events; General Discusssion; Religion & Science; Theology
KEYWORDS: afterlife; heaven; neardeath; proof
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last
It is because the Lord has put eternity in our hearts that our popular culture finds so fascinating the subject of life after death.
1 posted on 08/09/2015 12:20:13 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

There is no “died on the operating table and came back”.
If someone “came back “ they were not dead. Death is that from which you don’t come back.

There is no “near death”. It is binary. dead/not dead.
To date, there is no proof. It is a matter of faith.


2 posted on 08/09/2015 12:31:02 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible. Complicit in the destruction of this country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back

“Death is that from which you don’t come back.”

So saith Lazarus.


3 posted on 08/09/2015 12:34:54 PM PDT by Auslander154
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back

You’ve defined things in a way that there can never be proof.


4 posted on 08/09/2015 12:35:27 PM PDT by maro (what did the President know and when did he know it?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

I find the subject fascinating. It at least gives a purpose and reason to keep moving forward.


5 posted on 08/09/2015 12:39:35 PM PDT by gattaca (Republicans believe every day is July 4, democrats believe every day is April 15. Ronald Reagan)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

I do believe in life after death.

Look at Megyn Kelly. She’s Pontius Pilate reincarnated.


6 posted on 08/09/2015 12:46:43 PM PDT by max americana (fired liberals in our company last election, and I laughed while they cried (true story))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back

http://news.discovery.com/human/life/from-the-deepest-coma-new-brain-activity-found-130918.htm

The hippocampus is the gateway for memory. However, we do have souls. That is the issue here.


7 posted on 08/09/2015 12:50:32 PM PDT by huldah1776
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: huldah1776

more...

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/18/science/la-sci-sn-brain-activity-death-20130918


8 posted on 08/09/2015 12:51:12 PM PDT by huldah1776
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back
Dead/not dead?

Then define "dead".

When the heart quits beating? Lots of people have been there, done that, and are still walking around.

When brain activity ceases? How do you measure that? Is that all brain activity, or just higher function?

(arguably, the latter is prevalent among the living).

At any rate, short of decomposition and decay, where do you draw the line?

9 posted on 08/09/2015 1:25:51 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back

Way to use a logical argument to dismiss factual evidence!!!

From now on, physicists don’t need to experiment - they can just postulate logical arguments!!

Thanks for the new realm of scientific inquiry!

/s


10 posted on 08/09/2015 1:37:39 PM PDT by Darteaus94025 (Can't have a Liberal without a Lie)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

I say there isn’t proof. The whole concept is faith, not proof. Anyone who says they went somewhere and encountered Jesus, who told them to come back, is either a fraud, or had some kind of dream in a dying brain.
This is just Christian porn and is always bound to disappoint.

In the end, its about faith, nothing else.


11 posted on 08/09/2015 1:56:25 PM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino
This is just Christian porn and is always bound to disappoint.

Thanks for sharing your faith.

12 posted on 08/09/2015 2:06:23 PM PDT by IncPen (Not one single patriot in Washington, DC.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back

Near death is not death. If it were death, it wouldn’t be near death, it would just be death. But it’s not death, it’s near death.


13 posted on 08/09/2015 2:21:40 PM PDT by Excellence (Marine mom since April 11, 2014)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino; metmom; boatbums; presently no screen name; redleghunter; Springfield Reformer; ...
I say there isn’t proof. The whole concept is faith, not proof. Anyone who says they went somewhere and encountered Jesus, who told them to come back, is either a fraud, or had some kind of dream in a dying brain. This is just Christian porn and is always bound to disappoint.

It is your logic that is fraudulent. The debate continues as to the veracity of reported NEDs, while lack of proof does not translate into fraud. Similarly, you can say that there is no proof of extraterrestrial lifebut that alone does not mean all reports (which i am not affirming) are fraud.

In addition, faith as revealed by Scripture is not blind faith but confidence based upon a degree of evidential warrant. God did not call Israel into covenantal obedience until after He manifested His reality. And those who turn to the Lord Jesus with broken and contrite hearts to save them by His sinless shed blood realize changing in heart and life which correspond to the promises of the risen Savior, and overall go beyond mere naturalistic causes. Thanks be to God.

Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance [pistis] unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:31)

14 posted on 08/09/2015 2:54:23 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned and destitute sinner+ trust Him to save you, then follow Him!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
The Southampton study corroborates the testimony of Dr. Eben Alexander, the Harvard-trained brain neurosurgeon who authored the 2012 book, “Proof of Heaven,” which topped the New York Times bestsellers list...yeah, well I read Dr. Alexander's book, and didn't find it very convincing - until I got to the last chapter....
15 posted on 08/09/2015 4:18:15 PM PDT by Intolerant in NJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
The old saying goes something like, "To those who believe, no proof is necessary. To those who don't believe, no proof is possible."

Well, if this series opens one heart to Our Lord, it will be a success.
16 posted on 08/09/2015 5:12:28 PM PDT by Montana_Sam (Truth lives.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back

Death is a state of existence involving separation.

The first death is the separation of the soul and spirit from the body.

In God’s Plan, if it isn’t time for you to die, you will not suffer the first death.


17 posted on 08/09/2015 5:49:53 PM PDT by Cvengr ( Adversity in life & death is inevitable; Stress is optional through faith in Christ.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
That’s how those without a faith life, those skeptical of life after death, explain away evidence of the hereafter.

live...

18 posted on 08/10/2015 3:09:38 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: I want the USA back
If someone “came back “ they were not dead. Death is that from which you don’t come back.

Jesus' friend Lazarus shudda wrote a book...

19 posted on 08/10/2015 3:10:28 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino
This is just Christian porn and is always bound to disappoint.

Hold that thought; Thomas.

20 posted on 08/10/2015 3:11:32 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson