Heaven

[trippymonkey]

Nick,

Has Mahomet, actually done something to bring peace to the world as Christ did?

A Muslim could not argue a point in such circumstances as Christ was foretold, Mahomet wasn't.
I honestly do not believe any points can be raised which are not in line with the truth given by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel.

Sass
I totally agree - we need only see what's happening today to see the legacy of Islam. These Muslims are doing precisely what their fascist leader did THEN.
We must remember he didn't do it all alone !?!?!?

[Maeght]

When millions of people around the world experience almost the very same things and they actually experience being out of the body and in another place during such events.....why would that be discounted and all their experiences be regarded as merely brain generated?!!   

That is the most bizarre and myopic view anyone can take.

Millions of NDEs? Experiencing the same thing means nothing other than they are going through the same process with the same cause. Who said their experiences should be discounted? Not me. Merely that the cause of their experience is not known.

[Enki]

When millions of people around the world experience almost the very same things and they actually experience being out of the body and in another place during such events.....why would that be discounted and all their experiences be regarded as merely brain generated?!!   

That is the most bizarre and myopic view anyone can take.

Because that isn't quite true, is it?  Millions of people around the world don't experience 'almost the very same things' at all. In fact, the only things which one can say seem to be universal are the idea of meeting other beings and entering a different world, and even these are hugely different in description and seem to reflect the culture of the person concerned. Try looking at some of the evidence.

[Sriram]

can I just check an assumption based on this and a couple of your recent posts? Would I be correct in thinking that you would see alien abduction stories as true in some sense but relating to other universes?

I have no idea of alien abduction stories. I have not studied them in any way.

They are not comparable to NDE's.  NDE's are many more in number, much more varied in terms of gender, age, community, country etc. and have been investigated by hundreds of doctors and psychologists around the world in modern hospitals.

Dismissing NDE's by lumping them with alien abduction stories is the easy way out.....and very short sighted and disingenuous.

[Nearly Sane]

I have no idea of alien abduction stories. I have not studied them in any way.

They are not comparable to NDE's.  NDE's are many more in number, much more varied in terms of gender, age, community, country etc. and have been investigated by hundreds of doctors and psychologists around the world in modern hospitals.

Dismissing NDE's by lumping them with alien abduction stories is the easy way out.....and very short sighted and disingenuous.

if you haven't studied them, how can you know  if NDEs are many more in number?

Oh and BTW, reread what I posted. It doesn't dismiss anything. You read that into it when I asked a non judgemental question.

[Sriram]

if you haven't studied them, how can you know  if NDEs are many more in number?

Oh and BTW, reread what I posted. It doesn't dismiss anything. You read that into it when I asked a non judgemental question.

Yeah...I am sorry. I thought I was writing to Maeght.  Well...actually I don't know much about alien abduction stories...but I am sure that in terms of sheer numbers they would not be as many as the NDE's. If I am wrong please confirm.

About parallel universes....since scientists postulate such worlds...and they match up with ancient stories of angels and spirits that descend from the skies....I think it is possible that these universes are somehow involved with our world rather than aliens from exoplanets that are thousands of light years away.

Goodnight!

[Maeght]

Yeah...I am sorry. I thought I was writing to Maeght.

Why? I haven't mentioned alien abductions - that was Nearly Sane.

[Nearly Sane]

Yeah...I am sorry. I thought I was writing to Maeght.  Well...actually I don't know much about alien abduction stories...but I am sure that in terms of sheer numbers they would not be as many as the NDE's. If I am wrong please confirm.

About parallel universes....since scientists postulate such worlds...and they match up with ancient stories of angels and spirits that descend from the skies....I think it is possible that these universes are somehow involved with our world rather than aliens from exoplanets that are thousands of light years away.

Goodnight!

Goodnight to you too. I don't know anything about the numbers involved but logically more alien abduction experiences would make sense simply because more people could experience them.

I think there is a whole thread to consider what we think of as the value of individual experience, and how we connect that ad bring the same or similar to others' experiences but I fear that may be a bit esoteric

[Steve H]

NDE's are the most prolific and most convincing evidence yet for an after-life. The fact that many people choose to regard them as some sort of a brain generated illusion, only shows the compulsive need in some people to find a material explanation for all experiences, at all costs.    Its a mental block that is not easy to remove.

Perhaps another generation has to pass  before an after-life will be commonly regarded as a fact of life and people would integrate that idea into their  daily lives. It will not be a matter of 'faith' or 'belief' any more but a real experience that people can look forward to after they leave the body. As real as looking forward to going home from boarding school during the holidays. That would be a good situation instead of all this tiresome 'blind man's buff' with the universe that we are currently indulging in. 

They are NEAR-death experiences.  The person recovered to tell the tale, so they didn't actually die.  Therefore, such experiences tell us nothing about what, if anything, lies beyond death.  (I know we hear people say things like "I died three times on the operating table", but what they mean is that their heart stopped three times.  Now that hearts can be re-started, the stoppage of the heart is no longer the definition of death.  Death is final, so, barring a miracle strictly so-called, if someone comes back to tell the tale, they weren't actually dead.)

[Sriram]

Goodnight to you too. I don't know anything about the numbers involved but logically more alien abduction experiences would make sense simply because more people could experience them.

I think there is a whole thread to consider what we think of as the value of individual experience, and how we connect that ad bring the same or similar to others' experiences but I fear that may be a bit esoteric

I don't have any comparative statistics on NDE's and alien abductions.  Alien abductions seem to happen typically in isolated areas and there are  normally no independent witnesses  to such events. 

But NDE's usually happen in hospitals under the full supervision of doctors. In many cases doctors have confirmed that the patient had died in medical terms. In some cases even the EEG have indicated death. In spite of that, there have been many accounts of patients watching and reproducing conversations, medical procedures and so on, which they could not have known.

I agree that lot more research needs to be done on NDE's and more accurate information need to be produced.  But the attitude of many people dismissing such experiences entirely as 'just hallucinations' is what is not acceptable. It smacks of mental blocks and rigid materialism.

Natural phenomena need not be always material.

[Sriram]

They are NEAR-death experiences.  The person recovered to tell the tale, so they didn't actually die.  Therefore, such experiences tell us nothing about what, if anything, lies beyond death.  (I know we hear people say things like "I died three times on the operating table", but what they mean is that their heart stopped three times.  Now that hearts can be re-started, the stoppage of the heart is no longer the definition of death.  Death is final, so, barring a miracle strictly so-called, if someone comes back to tell the tale, they weren't actually dead.)

Dr.Sam Parnia has confirmed that these experiences are after death experiences and that 'Near death' is a misnomer. Many of these patients had actually been declared dead.

[floo]

Dr.Sam Parnia has confirmed that these experiences are after death experiences and that 'Near death' is a misnomer. Many of these patients had actually been declared dead.

A person who is really dead doesn't come back to life again that isn't possible.

[Aruntraveller]

Dr.Sam Parnia has confirmed that these experiences are after death experiences and that 'Near death' is a misnomer. Many of these patients had actually been declared dead.

Unsure what criteria Dr Parnia is using for his diagnosis of death. Is it just that the heart stopped beating?

If so that really isn't death until that cessation is of a long enough duration to ensure no chance of recovery. 

[BashfulAnthony]

Unsure what criteria Dr Parnia is using for his diagnosis of death. Is it just that the heart stopped beating?

If so that really isn't death until that cessation is of a long enough duration to ensure no chance of recovery.

I understand death is when the brain is no longer functioning.

[Steve H]

Dr.Sam Parnia has confirmed that these experiences are after death experiences and that 'Near death' is a misnomer. Many of these patients had actually been declared dead.

Well, either Dr Parnia is wrong, or you have misunderstood him.Bashful Anthony, Trentvoyager, and (for once) Floo, above, are all correct.  Death is irreversible, by definition, and nowadays the criterion used is brain-death, not heart-stoppage.

From Wikipedia:

Parnia and others have suggested that a mind that is mediated by, but not produced by, the brain, is a possible way to explain NDE.[4][24][25]

Science writer Mike McRae has noted "While Parnia's work contributes valuable data to understanding NDE as a cultural phenomenon, his speculations do indeed sit on the brink of pseudoscience."[26] Neurologist Michael O'Brien has written that "most people would not find it necessary to postulate such a separation between mind and brain to explain the events," and suggested that further research is likely to provide a physical explanation for near-death experiences.[4] The psychologist Susan Blackmore appeared with Parnia and Peter Fenwick on a BBC documentary called "The Day I Died" and disagreed with their interpretations of NDEs, finding purely physical explanations to be more plausible.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Parnia

[Aruntraveller]

I understand death is when the brain is no longer functioning.

Yes - that is part of the definition that is commonly used. But as ever with medical issues it gets very complicated. Don't google it for goodness sake - it'll just confuse the issue even more.

But Dr Parnia can't be using that definition because if the brain has stopped functioning the person obviously cannot come back to tell us about it. So I just wondered what definition he was applying.   

[Aruntraveller]

further to my last post he is using heart stoppage:

He has stated: “contrary to perception, death is not a specific moment but a potentially reversible process that occurs after any severe illness or accident causes the heart, lungs and brain to cease functioning. If attempts are made to reverse this process, it is referred to as ‘cardiac arrest’; however, if these attempts do not succeed it is called ‘death’. He has mostly studied those who have no heart beat and no detectable brain activity for periods of time and believes cardiac arrest is the optimal model to help understand the human experience of death.[1][16][17]

This looks like a redefinition of death to support his theory to me.

[Nearly Sane]

This is a good article covering NDEs and the investigation of them


http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-science-of-near-death-experiences/386231/

[Steve H]

further to my last post he is using heart stoppage:

This looks like a redefinition of death to support his theory to me.

My thought exactly.  He's obviously got his own agenda, and is being very selective with the facts, and eccentric in his definitions, to support it.

[Harrowby Hall]

Bashful Anthony is correct. Death is when the brain ceases to function. If I recall correctly, the cessation of brain stem activity is regarded as the determinant of death.

I think that what Sriram is not considering is that death is a process not an event. It is clearly possible to reverse the process at an early stage. NDEs are products of the living brain and, as someone else noted, differ in different cultures - which suggests that they may have some learnt component.

[floo]

Bashful Anthony is correct. Death is when the brain ceases to function. If I recall correctly, the cessation of brain stem activity is regarded as the determinant of death.

I think that what Sriram is not considering is that death is a process not an event. It is clearly possible to reverse the process at an early stage. NDEs are products of the living brain and, as someone else noted, differ in different cultures - which suggests that they may have some learnt component.

I wonder if the NDE experiences vary depending on one's culture and/or religion?

[Brownie]

Apparently so, it all depends on what is in the unconscious mind.  I would probably have vaguely Judeo-Christian images whereas a Hindu would have Hindu images in their mind, which would give each of us a different experience with different characters present.

[Aruntraveller]

Apparently so, it all depends on what is in the unconscious mind.  I would probably have vaguely Judeo-Christian images whereas a Hindu would have Hindu images in their mind, which would give each of us a different experience with different characters present.

But that is no different to describing the process of dreaming, surely.

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

This is probably the wrong thread to elaborate on this subject...but what the heck..!

Most NDE features are common across cultures, age, gender and class.  When a person meets with an accident or has a heart attack or something...the following usually happen.

1. Out of body experience...they see their own body lying down there. They realize they are 'dead'.

2. Often they cannot recognize their own body except through some object like a ring. Seems alien to them.

3. They feel happy and peaceful.

4. Sometimes they feel a sense of lose for leaving behind some one like their children.
 
5. Some people see dead relatives who come to help them.

6. Some of them have a rapid life review. They see all the harm and pain they have caused.

7. Some of them have a sense of absolute knowledge. All questions are answered or seem irrelevant.

8. Some of them see dead people waiting to be reincarnated.

9. Some of them float through a dark tunnel or a staircase.

10. They see a bright light that they identify with God or Jesus  or Ram or Allah. Some people think of it as their Higher Self.

11. They are asked to go back and finish their duties.

12. Some people see a Silver Cord that seems to attached them to their body.

13. They then feel themselves being pulled back into their body.

14. They feel heavy and uncomfortable back in their body. Most of them want to stay 'dead'.

15. They are able to recount the events that transpired at the hospital/accident site when they were lying dead. They can identify objects, medical instruments and people who were involved.

16. It is life changing and the people become more loving and selfless. Life begins to have a meaning and purpose. 

17. Some people (a minority) have negative NDE's where they feel fear. They see suffering and pain. 


Broadly these are the experiences that most people have during NDE's. they are common across cultures except that the bright light is identified with different deities in different cultures. Reincarnation is mentioned even by people who do not believe in reincarnation( Christians, muslims). 

If there is anything to take away...it is that religion is not important and that secular spiritual development, love and good deeds are more important.

Cheers.

Sriram 

[floo]

They might think they are dead, but of course they aren't.