Well, nobody - except One particular Person.
"I walked down a long corridor, and into a room...and they had me take a number..."
If anyone were allowed to come back, would they be believed?
My much loved, Christian Grandmother, who had been a widow for decades, reached out (actually up toward the ceiling of her hospital room) and had a beaming smile on her face as she passed over. The realm of Angels is only an arms length away anyway don'tchaknow.
I need to get more monks praying for me.
The Transfiguration is all anyone needs to know that there is life after death. Moses and Elijah talking. What else does one need besides Jesus's promise? If a person denies this, than hearing about someone's experience from the otherside certainly isn't going to bring someone to faith.
Some people have had experiences that they know better than to talk about with others who have not.
Yes, there is more.
We have TWO bodies : physical and spiritual, like the particle/wave duality of matter. When the silver cord is snapped, the golden bowl broken, they go their separate ways; the "particle" to the junk car yard called the cemetary, the "wave" either up or down. From statistical studies of the NDE about 2/3rds go up to heaven(thru the tunnel, like the birth process itself), 1/3 go down to hell. It may have to do with the UP Quark(+2/3 charge)and DOWN Quark(-1/3 charge); but, hey, that's just a guess...Jesus will explain it all when he gets back as our ambassador to intelligent species thruout the universe.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
- CS Lewis
I'm sure that an atheist or skeptic would say that her exclamation was just her fading mind in an emotional state expressing it's fondest desire at that critical moment. But I choose to believe that she saw her dear husband's handsome young face as he reached out to take her hand and welcome her to their eternal home in that heavenly land where Jesus Christ went to prepare a place for those of us who are trusting in him and him alone for our eternal salvation.
Life and death has to be re-defined on a spiritual basis, not a physical basis, for there is a greater death than the death of the body.
And there is a greater life available to you here and now than the life you were given when you were born on earth.
The question that can be answered today is, can one begin partaking of that greater life and know they have entered into eternal life before their body is buried?
Well, that's the Good News!
But if we are only concerned with the question of retaining our conscious awareness, memory and identity after our physical body perishes, that can be answered by anyone who has ever had a wide-awake, out-of-body and bi-located.
I tend to look at NDE stories the same as I do the Shroud of Turin. If it truly is an event where people see God, great and wonderful. If it isn't, it wasn't the focus of my faith anyway.
Particularly for non-baseball fans, I will repeat the story of Astros pitcher Roger Clemens' mother. Bess died last September on a day Roger was supposed to pitch. She told Roger to go and pitch because he would win the game, 10-2. Roger laughed because the Astros had had trouble scoring runs for him all year. Well, the Astros managed to score 10 runs and led 10-1 in the top of the ninth. Then, a normally reliable fielder made an error that let in a second opposition run. Final score: Astros won, 10-2.
Roger's sister said that, as her mother was about to die, she kept repeating "Shoeless Joe Jackson". Shoeless Joe was a member of the infamous 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" that threw the World Series for gamblers, for which he was banned from the game a year later. The White Sox had never won a World Series since then.
Clemens and the Astros reached the World Series for the first time ever in October and their opponent turned out to be the Chicago White Sox who beat them in four straight, winning their first championship since Jackson's teams of WWI.
Coincidence? You decide.
I have struggled with these very same questions, especially since my wife passed.
When I was younger, I had no doubt there was a great plan. And that I was some part of it.
As I got older, it seemed less clear. Out of all the folks who had passed, why can't just one give some incontrovertible proof? Show up on the Tonight Show and give the lottery numbers for tomorrow night or something?
So where is the evidence? If I did live previous lives, why can't I remember one tiny bit? When you look at actual data, it doesn't look very supportive of extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Yet more of my examination have given new hope and direction. We are not just muscles and tissues. What makes us us is PATTERNS. Patterns of thought, patterns of awareness. There is no single cell in any of us that holds the "me" in it. Yet each and every cell is a tiny, living, individual being.
So we are much more than the simple sum of the parts. Wish I knew what, but maybe time will give the answer.
Given what we know versus what we don't know, I think it's arrogant to assume that this is all there is. The end does not have to mean oblivion; it's the start of the next great Story, as C.S. Lewis wrote.
I once had a Near Life experience.
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee"
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Years ago a retired Navy vet worked for the same company I did. He was a womanizing, cussing, drinking fool. He foolishly climbed up on the forks of a fork truck and fell. He was in critical condition and suffered a broken back and some internal injuries. He was never able to return to work but did drop in to see us a few times. He said "I met Jesus that day in the warehouse". He started going to church and was saved. He was a changed person.
Also I was at the death bed of my father in law. He had been unconscious for days when suddenly he opened his eyes looked up and said, "I don't want the angels to see me like this"...he died moments later.
libby
What happens *after* death is pretty clearly explained in the bible:
Dan 12:2 "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.
Paul explains further about those who awake to everlasting life:
1Co 15:51 Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1Co 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed
After death, we rest in peace awaiting our resurrection.
NDE ping