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Heaven Is Real: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife
Newsweek/Daily Beast ^ | Oct 8 2012 | Eban Alexander

Posted on 10/08/2012 3:01:21 PM PDT by WilliamIII

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.

... In the fall of 2008, however, after seven days in a coma during which the human part of my brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: ebenalexander; heaven; neardeathexperience; neurosurgeon
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To: ilovesarah2012

“I remember hearing her having a conversation with her two sisters who had died before her.”

Everyone is sitting around grandpa’s hospital bed waiting for his last breath. The room is quiet. Suddenly he raises his head from the pillow, his eyes fixed on a corner of the ceiling, he smiles and exclaims: “JACK”!?? He lays back and is dead. His son Jack had predeceased him by a year. True story.


61 posted on 10/08/2012 4:27:10 PM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job.)
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To: WilliamIII

Heaven will be far superior to life on earth. Good enough for me.


62 posted on 10/08/2012 4:30:42 PM PDT by tflabo (Truth or Tyranny)
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To: I want the USA back

Lazarus dead 4 days.


63 posted on 10/08/2012 4:35:28 PM PDT by sopwith (don't tread on me)
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To: TalBlack

I believe there’s got to be something to it.


64 posted on 10/08/2012 4:37:15 PM PDT by ilovesarah2012
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To: WilliamIII

Thanks for this post. I enjoyed imagining his experiences. Sounds very beautiful and peaceful.


65 posted on 10/08/2012 4:37:23 PM PDT by catbertz
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To: tet68

I’ve thought of that but who do you ask?


66 posted on 10/08/2012 4:41:48 PM PDT by sopwith (don't tread on me)
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To: ilovesarah2012

I don’t doubt for a moment she was hearing/seeing them. Amazing.


67 posted on 10/08/2012 4:41:48 PM PDT by CatherineofAragon (Don't be afraid to see what you see. (Ronald Reagan))
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To: maica
Could this have been how a four-year-old human brain interpreted what was happening to him?

I see a lot of attempts to either validate or discredit these descriptions of NDEs by comparing the details that are related to other people's NDEs or other sources of description of what lies beyond this mortal experience. What they are failing to take into account is that the descriptions are all given when the subject is back in their bodies and using their brains and the tools of ordinary language to attempt to describe their experience to people who have never had one.

It is not necessarily the case that what they experienced was actually different just because the descriptions they give when back in the ordinary realm of life contain different details and varied analogies. They certainly must be analogies since they all say they are trying to describe something that doesn't exist in any way shape or form here in our ordinary state.

68 posted on 10/08/2012 4:44:28 PM PDT by TigersEye (dishonorabledisclosure.com - OPSEC (give them support))
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To: fabian
How glorious for you!

I wish I could have one gentle word from God whispered in my ear, or some joyful change of fortune to prove that my family's suffering is only temporary.

69 posted on 10/08/2012 4:48:58 PM PDT by LoveUSA (God employs Man's strength; Satan exploits Man's weakness.)
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To: tflabo
I know this is going to sound flippant to some, but the one thing I'm looking forward to in the afterlife is time to read all those books that have been piling up all around me. It seems like I never have enough time to read in this mortal life!

Imagine having eternity to read every book ever written.

Looking forward to that Great Kindle in the Sky!

70 posted on 10/08/2012 4:49:58 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: sopwith

Relax, and think, think back, it’s all there.


71 posted on 10/08/2012 4:58:02 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: WilliamIII

The ususal little simple minded demons jumped in on the comments below the article.

This scientist going public with experiencing God is like a Black person announcing she is voting for a Republican. The herd people can not tolerate any public defections from group think.


72 posted on 10/08/2012 4:59:29 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: LoveUSA

well...go to fhu.com and give that Be Still exercise a try. It will put you on an amazing road. You can hear it for free also at copingstrategiescd.com.


73 posted on 10/08/2012 5:01:03 PM PDT by fabian (" And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, and the forests will echo with laughter"you min)
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To: I want the USA back

Who said anything about near death being the same as death?? Just say , hey, I don’t believe any of this instead of making useless statements.


74 posted on 10/08/2012 5:01:37 PM PDT by fish hawk
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To: WilliamIII

bm


75 posted on 10/08/2012 5:04:55 PM PDT by Vision ("Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?" John 11:40)
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To: I want the USA back; Peter W. Kessler
Heaven isn’t going to be like anything we can imagine. Our earthly imaginations are far too limited.

Of course. And the reason the people who write about these things relate visions that may seem a bit pedestrian to the rest of us--herds of butterflies, a blond Jesus, lovely gardens--are because our heavenly hosts have to speak the language our limited human minds can comprehend. No, the people who are blessed to have these experiences have to be able to grasp them and then relay them to the rest of us. As you note, they don't actually die and go to heaven, but only seem to be on the doorstep. Surely our minds could not circumscribe the joys of heaven. Naturally their visions may seem somewhat mundane. But that doesn't mean these things didn't happen or that the patients haven't been entrusted with an important message for the rest of the world.

76 posted on 10/08/2012 5:07:51 PM PDT by ottbmare (The OTTB Mare)
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To: ilovesarah2012
<<>> AGREED!
77 posted on 10/08/2012 5:08:19 PM PDT by kitkat
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To: WilliamIII

Here in Revelation 4 we see heaven and the activity of heaven. God the Father and The Son Jesus Christ are the center of everything in heaven and all activity is around them in worship and adoration.

This what our activity on earth should also be like, for those of us who are the bride of Christ.

Matthew 6:9-10 ESV

Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.


Revelation 4:1-11 ESV

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind:
the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,

who was and is and is to come!”
And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honor and power,

for you created all things,

and by your will they existed and were created.”


78 posted on 10/08/2012 5:08:29 PM PDT by free_life (If you ask Jesus to forgive you and to save you, He will.)
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To: WilliamIII

Sounds a lot like DMT experiences I’ve read on erowid. Apparently the brain releases DMT when near death, so it wouldn’t surprise me that when you really die you get all this (if it’s slow, not totally brain destroyed at once violently) and then fades out to a state of what it was like before you were born.


79 posted on 10/08/2012 5:08:36 PM PDT by Monty22002
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To: WilliamIII

Heaven will be for me to reunite in Heaven with my beloved SO who had passed away suddenly early last month.


80 posted on 10/08/2012 5:11:38 PM PDT by Biggirl ("Jesus talked to us as individuals"-Jim Vicevich/Thanks JimV!)
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