Overkill wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Overkill wrote:
I think near-death experiences are very convincing because most people who have them describe them as extremely vivid, and thus, not what one would expect from a hallucination, and because they remain so adamantly convinced that the experience was real and not a hallucination. I would think that if they really could be written off as hallucinations, more atheists and agnostics who have a NDE would be convinced of this, but I've yet to hear a single case where this has happened. Instead, most NDE'ers are convinced that the experience was real, that God exists, and that the afterlife exists, regardless of how they felt before the NDE. So they may not be proof of an afterlife, but for me, they remain convincing evidence.
Well, spiritual experiences and conversion experiences are often described the same way, but I've heard of people deconverting after having them.
I don't think that these are convincing evidence though. I don't know what one should expect from a hallucination, but vivid hallucinations are described as happening as a result of taking certain drugs. So, clearly this is in the brain's capability, since all drugs do is alter the working of the mechanism, but they can't grant totally new powers.
Even further, subjective alteration isn't a really good argument. The human brain is screwed up. If you've seen how they can be taken apart, then I would see no reason to trust something that could easily be an error report.
Yeah, but the thing is, I can think of nobody who "deconverted" after having a NDE. I'll have to look up the data on this again, but it's extremely rare. Besides, I don't think converting to a religion and converting after having a NDE are exactly the same thing. Atheists and agnostics who convert to Christianity or Islam search out the religion willingly, while people who have NDE's are having an experience thrust upon them against their will. Logically, there should be more skeptics among them since it's not like they're "searching" or even trying to find some sort of religion or spirituality. Instead, virtually all of them are convinced.
Also, there's other, more convincing evidence from a NDE. For example, people who have been blind from birth having a NDE and somehow seeing perfectly during it. Given that people who are blind from birth don't even dream in images, I can't think of any reason they'd have a vivid visual hallucination unless it was real. In addition, people have verified events, conversations and the locations of objects while they were out of their body that turn out to be verified afterwards.
As for hallucinations, I've never understand how someone could have a hallucination when all brain activity has stopped and the EEG has essentially flatlined. Maybe someone more scientifically inclined could explain that to me, as it never really made sense.
My hypothesis is that those who are inclined to believe WILL believe. An atheist or agnostic who experience God through NDE (or through any means, for that matter) has an undeniable experience that forces them to take a position. Either it really was what it appeared to be, or it was the consequence of the brain shutting down, those last few neurons firing while they have a little energy left to burn off. The atheist MIGHT choose to believe in God from that point forward. Other experiences, such as Saul of Tarsus and the "Road to Damascus" experience, carry with them the same call to take a stand. Saul could just as easily claimed he had a stroke that caused him to go blind and his experience with God was just the effect of sickness on his brain. Being a religiously devout person to begin with, though, he accepted the conviction that what he experienced was more than illusion. He went from being a person who hated Christian to one who taught Christians.
I've never been dead before, but I did have an interesting experience once. I was in a car accident once that really shouldn't have been survivable. The car was flattened and landed upside down. I remember when it happened, everything seemed to slow down, and everything I saw took on this kind of bluish tint, really hazy like in a dream. I remember thinking I was about to die, and I heard a voice saying "No, you aren't going to die. Open the door and step out." I remember feeling very calm, and I'm not sure why but what "the voice" said just seemed to make perfect sense at the time. I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, tried the door a couple times before it opened, casually stepped out, and the next thing I knew I was face down in the dirt. My friend who was driving was thrown from the car onto the road and was hurt a little more than I was. But even so, I didn't have anything more than a few bruises and some aching muscles the next day. I was staying with my grandparents at the time, and I had to throw up after the adrenaline rush wore off. The driver had a few scrapes but was otherwise fine.
That I lived at all, considering there wasn't much left of the car, in and of itself was a miracle. But stepping out of a fast moving vehicle in mid-flip on the advice of some etherial voice--call it God, the Holy Spirit, a guardian angel--just as casually as if the car was parked and walking away with barely a scratch on me makes what happened even more extraordinary.
And, you know? I'm not even the kind of person who even NEEDS evidence to know God. Even if that had never happened, I'd have been no less convinced. But if I'd ever had any reason to doubt, that alone would have cleared things up.
There have been other experiences since then, but nothing ever quite that profound.
27 May 2010, 11:55 pm
