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Permalink Reply by Nelson on December 13, 2009 at 11:22am

doone offers good information there.

the commonality is a product of each person sharing the same brain physiology. the commonality is the same commonality that makes it so that neurologists feel confident working on anyone's brain. the commonality in experiences is what we would expect. it's totally unsurprising and isn't an argument for anything other than that our brains each respond the same way to oxygen deprivation.

anyway, it's always seemed to me that people touting the NDE argument miss one glaring problem that exists right from the outset. NEAR death experience! these people aren't actually dying and then returning with these experiences. they're trans-death experiences. they're near death experiences, not after death experiences.

and still, let's even allow for a moment that these experiences would be evidence of a god's existence. the person using such an argument would still have all of their work ahead of them if they'd like to use this as evidence of their particular deity. they'd have all of their work ahead of them to justify their following the particular doctrines and dogma they do.

even if a valid argument it would only very slightly skew the probability away from infinitesimal perhaps leaving it best characterized then as "slim". it certainly wouldn't be a reason to jump into the god hypothesis with both feet despite their being no evidence that one exists and despite the very conception most people have of their god being incoherent and contradictory.

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Permalink Reply by Danielle on December 13, 2009 at 2:05pm

The writer of the atheist blog "Too Many Questions" had a heart attack a few months ago and technically died, and wrote a great post about it: http://crispysea.blogspot.com/2009/08/great-british-national-health...
There's also stuff in there about the health care debate, but that's not the point here. He says "So before, when I wrote my blogs, and ranted on about there being no god etc. I was standing on a rock called 'I don't know but the probability of a god is pretty much zero', whereas now, there is nobody on the planet more qualified. I know what happens when you're really 'most sincerely dead' because I've been there, and it's just exactly like being asleep."

Considering theists take their dreams seriously as messages from God sometimes, I think that makes sense.

I'm sure there are plenty of near death experiences that have happened that don't have any of the religious connotations, but those won't ever be the ones you hear about.

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Permalink Reply by Chris H on December 22, 2009 at 2:16pm

Thanks a lot, very nicely written I wasn't aware of the blog but have saved to my favorites.

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on December 14, 2009 at 2:40pm

You can see the 'tunnel of light' without having a near-death experience, too. Tunnel vision, the loss of peripheral vision while retaining vision in the center, can be caused by a great number of things, including a loss of blood to the brain (not unusual when someone is dying), extreme fear or distress (also not unusual), and a host of other sources.

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Permalink Reply by Monica Salcedo (Monicks) on December 22, 2009 at 6:01pm

Well, I was dead for a few minutes, and didn't have a NDE, but I do know about the characteristics and also the facts.

In addition to all the great answers you've gotten I can tell you this. What produces these allegedly "supernatural" experiences is a drug called Ketamine that creates all of the elements of an NDE when it is injected into normal, non-dying people.

This experience can be chemically induced with this drug. The trigger for the body to naturally release Ketamine is lack of oxygen to the brain and body. If you read scientific papers like these, you'll find that there is a completely chemical and completely non-spiritual reason for the NDE's.

I have also re-posted my own story here, if you want to read it.

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Permalink Reply by Greg K on December 28, 2009 at 11:22am

Well said, I remember Dawkins in "The God Delusion" made a similar comparison to Ketamine.

NDEs are just another example of religious people automatically attributing anything they don't understand to their faith. Instead of seeking a rational and scientific explanation the source of any mystery, it becomes a spiritual event or miracle without question.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on December 28, 2009 at 1:09pm

You have extra-religious/ NDE sources but no less refutable in most cases.

Remote viewing used by both USSR and the United States.

And the outlandish claims of Shirley McLaine.

No source to date has withstood the Critical Thinking process.

In regard to NDE strange cases do exist. However Critical Thinking must dismiss

this as evidence of an afterlife. The statement. There is an afterlife because I can't explain case xyz, is readily falsifiable

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Permalink Reply by Owen on April 15, 2010 at 8:45am

To add to the ketamine argument, I have seen people taking it recreationally (stupid as I think they were to do it, seeing as it's used as a horse tranquiliser).

One person did in fact claim that he felt like he was out of his body and promptly swore off ever doing it again. The other (a regular user) stood in the middle of the room and told the world at large that he was "Jesus Decimus Mauridius, the Roman God Gladiator"... so take that how you will, I guess.

My view? Just because we may not have an adequate scientific explanation for these experiences doesn't mean you can jump to putting God in there.

Interestingly, NDEs can be simulated without drugs by stimulating certain areas of the brain. There's a link to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (a condition many people may have and never realise it) - I'm posting the rest at the end of the thread as it seems like something new to bring to the table.

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Permalink Reply by a7 on December 22, 2009 at 8:42pm

doone man and nelson man are right on the button here, The one thing that everybody has in common no matter where they come from or what they believe, is that they all have a brain. The brain, in my opinion and based on what i have read is that the brain is dying. sad and simple .

I would still like to hear explanations of people seeing and remembering things that were up high, out of their line of vision.

world peace and puff to all

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Permalink Reply by Wendy on December 25, 2009 at 2:54am

I can't remember where I saw it, but I"m tempted to say it was a Penn & Teller's bullshit episode. Anyway, at a NASA training center, they have one of those fun little centrifuge machines. Very reliably, after a certain G-force, all pilots basically pass out, and report a NDE-like experience. As previous posters have said, this is attributed to the hypoxia to the brain.

A related phenomenon is the abduction experience. It's most likely that the "victims" are really only experiencing sleep paralysis. I've actually had this feeling. Woke up, but I was physically unable to move, and I had a sense of another being in my room (my grandfather's funeral had been that day). Seriously freaky, but scientifically explainable. Wiki has a good summary on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

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Permalink Reply by Wendy on December 27, 2009 at 6:06am

Brandon - go look up James Randi... you show me documented proof of a 'paranormal event' (that can't be explained by charlatanry or misunderstood natural forces), and I'll eat my shoe, laces and all.

A for example - the "spirit orbs" in photographs that ghost hunters like to crow about. Dust particles in the air make GREAT reflectors of the flash, and you can't see them with your naked eye.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on December 26, 2009 at 9:50pm

Quantum weirdness is more freaky then this allege stuff. The role of quantum mechanics in conscientiousness is a field of study also, "where does conscientiousness lie " may be one day answered by project Blue Brain.
But if Project Blue Brain is correct the electromagnetic spikes in the brain are not a result of conscientiousness, but rather conscientiousness itself, certainly a paradigm shift that may have far reaching ramifications and would not limit conscientiousness to carbon base units. But a conscientious spirit leaving the body has Pagan origins and is not a argument for the Bible, "the living know they shall die and the dead know not anything"

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