new study on nde's says they are real

[bippy123]

Here is an excellent presentation on nde's by doctor Bruce greyson who is often referred to as the father of modern nde research. He is also known for coming up with the greyson scale. His scientific credentials are impeccable .This is for anyone who wants to have a good foundational understanding of nde's and why they constitute compelling evidence for the soul and life after death.
https://youtu.be/1O5Rg4W-wd0

[Jac3510]

You know what, I get a bit frustrated when someone says that atheism is not a belief in anything when EVERYTHING we think about is a type of belief.
Non-belief doesn't exists, what you are saying is that you don't believe in something, which means that you believe that something doesn't exist.
Atheist believe that there is no proof, no evidence for god(s) so they state that they do not believe in god(s) and that is a correct statement as far as it goes BUT it is not a equal an atheist NOT believing in anything ot atheism not being a belief in anything.
Not, I may just be doing a semantics rant here, but the reality is to NOT believe in something is to believe in something else.

Perhaps correctly defined, atheism is the belief that god(s) do not exist BUT modern atheists dislike that because they WANT it to NOT be a belief system but the sheer reality is that everything we know and agree with ( or disagree) is based on what we BELIEVE to be true or false.

In short, ALL is a belief system.

Correct, Paul. The affirmation in the modern take on "atheism" is "there is not sufficient evidence to affirm the existence of God." This amounts to saying, "The evidence presented is insufficient to warrant belief in God." Therefore, the atheist is required to demonstrate this claim. It does no good to hide behind the burden of proof argument, which is the lazy way out so often employed.

With that said, the semantics of the term "atheism" are important. I addressed them in some detail a couple of years ago here for those who are interested.

[/derail]

[PaulSacramento]

Personally I just dislike when people say that a disbelief or an absence of a specific belief means there is NO belief whatsoever.
Ever view we have is based on believing something and atheism is the belief that god(s) don't exist, period.
Not believing in something is simply choosing to believe that whatever evidence is put forth for A is not good enough to warrant being believed in.

[Kurieuo]

Personally I just dislike when people say that a disbelief or an absence of a specific belief means there is NO belief whatsoever.
Ever view we have is based on believing something and atheism is the belief that god(s) don't exist, period.
Not believing in something is simply choosing to believe that whatever evidence is put forth for A is not good enough to warrant being believed in.

There is a reason why I always roll my eyes at anyone who would claim to lack a belief on a subject.
A formal logical argument would perhaps go something like this:

1) Lack of belief on a subject entails one is unaware to that subject of belief.
2) The moment one becomes aware to a subject of belief, they conceive of something about that subject of belief.
3) If you conceive something about a subject, then that something counts as a belief about that subject.
4) Therefore, one has a belief on any subject that they become aware to. (from 1, 2, 3)

Let's extend this argument...

5) The person who claims "to lack a belief in the subject of a belief" shows an awareness of that subject of belief.
6) It is not possible for a person to lack a belief in a subject that they are aware to (from 4).
7) Therefore, it is a contradiction to say "I lack a belief on some subject" since such presupposes an awareness to that subject.

And finally...

Atheists who claim that they lack a belief of God are full of doodoo. (from 7)

Edit: I found it amusing that an 8 followed by ) creates

[Disciplical]

As a new believer who has a strong fear of death and dying (don't we all? Unfortunately my fear of death became obsessive and I needed therapy, but that's by they by) I find NDE research fascinating. What a strong comfort it is that death isn't the end and we may have evidence to that; even prominent non-believers in the scientific world are now starting to advocate this view. I doubt we'll ever have conclusive evidence, but we can have a lot of evidence pointing towards it.

[Storyteller]

Know why?

Cos the number 8 on it`s side is the symbol of infinity, and infinity is pretty cool, no?

[bippy123]

As a new believer who has a strong fear of death and dying (don't we all? Unfortunately my fear of death became obsessive and I needed therapy, but that's by they by) I find NDE research fascinating. What a strong comfort it is that death isn't the end and we may have evidence to that; even prominent non-believers in the scientific world are now starting to advocate this view. I doubt we'll ever have conclusive evidence, but we can have a lot of evidence pointing towards it.

Sounds to me disciple that you have some firm of OCD called scrupulosity .Don't feel your alone my friend , I went through it all as well.

Your post was perfectly worded . We will never have total proof , but most of the evidence is pointing towards it , so much so that even prominent atheist magazines like the humanist even admit to this as I have shown.

Out of all nde researchers you can't find one that started out as an atheist materialist that stayed that way . This is purely from the nde research alone , not from any revelatory religious book.

I on the other hand only care about one afterlife which I believe in with all my heart , the afterlife where I spent eternity with my lord and savior Jesus Christ .

Welcome to Christianity my friend
May the peace and love of Christ always be with you
God bless

[bippy123]

There is another type of nde that is less talked about but even more fascinating then all the others combined and it is called peak of Darien .
Peak of Darien Nde's are Nde's where the experiencer brings back information from the afterlife of a dead relative which no one knew was dead at the time and after the nde that person is later confirmed to have actually died .
These are the toughest for atheists to refute by naturalistic explanations so their typical response is that they all lied and it was a grand conspiracy . Eben alexander Is a classic peak from Darien case that happened in modern times .

Here are some documented examples

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/mich ... arien.html


Vitor Moura sent me an interesting article by NDE researcher Bruce Greyson, which appeared in the December 2010 (Vol. 35, issue 2) edition of Anthropology and Humanism, a journal published by the American Anthropological Association. Titled "Seeing Dead People Not Known to Have Died: 'Peak in Darien' Experiences," the article lists a number of deathbed vision cases. As far as I know, only the abstract is freely available online.

There are so many cases, I can't excerpt them all. What follows are some of the more interesting ones. All of the quoted material is from Greyson's article and consists of Greyson's summaries in his own words.

One very early case was written up by Dr. Henry Atherton in 1680. The doctor's teenage sister,

who had been sick for a long time, was thought to have died. Indeed, the women attending to her saw no breath when they held a mirror to her mouth and saw no response when they put live coals to her feet. Nevertheless, the girl recovered and related a vision of visiting heaven, which her relatives dismissed as “dream or fancy.” The girl then insisted that she had seen several people who had died after she had lost consciousness. One of those she named was thought to be still alive; however, her family subsequently sent out inquiries and confirmed that the girl was correct.

A case written up in 1882 by Frances Power Cobbe

described a woman who, as she was dying, suddenly showed joyful surprise and spoke of seeing three of her brothers who had long been dead. She then apparently recognized a fourth brother, who was believed by everyone present to be still living in India.... Sometime thereafter letters arrived announcing the death of the brother in India, which had occurred prior to his dying sister recognizing him.

In 1885, Eleanor Sidgwick wrote up an interesting case involving a singer identified only as Julia X, who had been briefly employed six or seven years previously by an affluent lady. Now the employer was dying. On her deathbed she was coolly discussing business matters, when

uddenly she changed the subject and said, “Do you hear those voices singing?” No one else present heard them, and she concluded: “[The voices are] the angels welcoming me to Heaven; but it is strange, there is one voice amongst them I am sure I know, and cannot remember whose voice it is.” Suddenly she stopped and, pointing up, added: “Why there she is in the corner of the room; it is Julia X.” No one else present saw the vision, and the next day, February 13, 1874, the woman died. On February 14, Julia X’s death was announced in the Times. Her father later reported that “on the day she died she began singing in the morning, and sang and sang until she died.”

Here's one reported by pioneering psi researchers Edmund Gurney and F.W.H. Myers in 1889.

Gurney and Myers also described the case of John Alkin Ogle, who, an hour before he died, saw his brother who had died 16 years earlier, calling him by name. Ogle then called out in surprise, “George Hanley!” -- the name of a casual acquaintance in a village 40 miles away -- before expiring. His mother, who was visiting from Hanley’s village, then confirmed that Hanley had died 10 days earlier, a fact that no one else in the room had known.

In 1899, Alice Johnson described the case of the dying Mrs. Hicks, who

looked earnestly at the door to the room and said to her nurse, husband, and daughters, “There is someone outside, let him in.” Her daughter assured her there was no one there and opened the door wider. After a pause, Mrs. Hicks said: “Poor Eddie; oh, he is looking very ill; he has had a fall.” Her family assured her that the last news they had heard from him [her son, who was thousands of miles away] was that he was quite well, but she continued from time to time to say, “Poor Eddie!” Some time after she died, her husband received a letter from Australia announcing their son’s death. He had suddenly become feverish the day of his mother’s vision and was found dead, having fallen from his horse at about the time of his mother’s vision.

Another NDE with a deathbed-vision component was reported by pediatrician and NDE researcher Melvin Morse in 1990. A cancer-stricken 7-year-old boy

told his mother that he had traveled up a beam of light to heaven, where he visited a “crystal castle” and talked with God. The boy said that a man there approached him and introduced himself as an old high school boyfriend of the boy’s mother. The man said he had been crippled in an automobile accident, but in the crystal castle he had regained his ability to walk. The boy’s mother had never mentioned this old boyfriend to her son, but after hearing of this vision, she called some friends and confirmed that her former boyfriend had died the very day of her son’s vision.

Traveling up a beam of light sounds somewhat like the classic "tunnel" experience, and the crystal castle is reminiscent of the buildings constructed of glass or other transparent materials that are often reported by NDErs and mediums. These structures are sometimes said to be made of pure thought.

[B. W.]

Personally I just dislike when people say that a disbelief or an absence of a specific belief means there is NO belief whatsoever.
Ever view we have is based on believing something and atheism is the belief that god(s) don't exist, period.
Not believing in something is simply choosing to believe that whatever evidence is put forth for A is not good enough to warrant being believed in.

Do not Atheist believe in themselves?

[Disciplical]

As a new believer who has a strong fear of death and dying (don't we all? Unfortunately my fear of death became obsessive and I needed therapy, but that's by they by) I find NDE research fascinating. What a strong comfort it is that death isn't the end and we may have evidence to that; even prominent non-believers in the scientific world are now starting to advocate this view. I doubt we'll ever have conclusive evidence, but we can have a lot of evidence pointing towards it.

Sounds to me disciple that you have some firm of OCD called scrupulosity .Don't feel your alone my friend , I went through it all as well.

Your post was perfectly worded . We will never have total proof , but most of the evidence is pointing towards it , so much so that even prominent atheist magazines like the humanist even admit to this as I have shown.

Out of all nde researchers you can't find one that started out as an atheist materialist that stayed that way . This is purely from the nde research alone , not from any revelatory religious book.

I on the other hand only care about one afterlife which I believe in with all my heart , the afterlife where I spent eternity with my lord and savior Jesus Christ .

Welcome to Christianity my friend
May the peace and love of Christ always be with you
God bless

You're right - I do have OCD and it is certainly centred around philosophical/moral/religious matters. Therapy has helped me deal with it a lot, and exploring Christ brought me a great comfort I couldn't find any where else.

Do you have any specific examples of researchers who were atheist materialists who then changed their minds based on their NDE research? I've searched for books and articles online but most of them have very conflicting reviews.

[bippy123]

As a new believer who has a strong fear of death and dying (don't we all? Unfortunately my fear of death became obsessive and I needed therapy, but that's by they by) I find NDE research fascinating. What a strong comfort it is that death isn't the end and we may have evidence to that; even prominent non-believers in the scientific world are now starting to advocate this view. I doubt we'll ever have conclusive evidence, but we can have a lot of evidence pointing towards it.

Sounds to me disciple that you have some firm of OCD called scrupulosity .Don't feel your alone my friend , I went through it all as well.

Your post was perfectly worded . We will never have total proof , but most of the evidence is pointing towards it , so much so that even prominent atheist magazines like the humanist even admit to this as I have shown.

Out of all nde researchers you can't find one that started out as an atheist materialist that stayed that way . This is purely from the nde research alone , not from any revelatory religious book.

I on the other hand only care about one afterlife which I believe in with all my heart , the afterlife where I spent eternity with my lord and savior Jesus Christ .

Welcome to Christianity my friend
May the peace and love of Christ always be with you
God bless

You're right - I do have OCD and it is certainly centred around philosophical/moral/religious matters. Therapy has helped me deal with it a lot, and exploring Christ brought me a great comfort I couldn't find any where else.

Do you have any specific examples of researchers who were atheist materialists who then changed their minds based on their NDE research? I've searched for books and articles online but most of them have very conflicting reviews.

I'm headed to work now but I'll leave you some links when I get back in an hour.
For starters anything doctor pim von lommel was an atheist materialist and became spiritual after his nde research
Doctor jeffrey long was an atheist and is now a monist. Both are top nde researchers.
Sam parnia of the aware study is an agnostic and is getting very close to becoming spiritual. Most people suspect that he's already a believer in nde's but he is very cautious about what he says when it's time to get funding for his aware 2 project as well as passing through peer review because most of the editors of these medical journals are materialists that still hold onto the old paradigm. Jeffrey long had to calm skeptikos Alex tsakiris when parnia told Alex in his interview that parnia suspected that ndes were hallucinations in 2010. Parnia no longer believes this now

[bippy123]

Hey disciplical, here are the links I promised . Of you ever need to talk about your OCD themes , I'm just a pm away ok. Y friend
God bless
Doctor Pim van Lommel renowned Dutch cardiologist here talks about how before his nde research that he beloved that once the brain shuts off, that's it, but after his nde research he knew that what was happening to his patients he knew that his old ways of thinking about the brain = mind just didn't fit in and he changed his worldview .

http://youtu.be/GzLAvMAkx2s

Jeffrey long former atheist now a monist talks about the nine lines of evidences in Nde's that point to an afterlife

http://youtu.be/h-Xq_qBz92s

Another great article which also talks about the Nde of one of the greatest atheist philosophers AJ ayers . Ayers kept reassuring his fans that he was still an ate buts but curiously spent the last few months if his life mostly with a jesuit priest lol.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/atheists01.html


Former nurse and nde researcher penny sartori even admits that she believe that Nde's were hallucination because her medical training taught her this . You see most medical training is stuck in the old paradigm of brain = mind and that is why these researchers started out as materialists .but sartori eventually changed her mind from her own research and experience with dying patients .

http://youtu.be/YkW0ikd8i7U

[Morny]

[...] the orthodox and traditional sense of the word religion, atheism certianly isn't one [...]

Correct.

[...] BUT that in the modern sense, it may be viewed as [a religion].
Modern sense being:
a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.

Modern polls about religious affiliation classify atheism as "non-religious".

For the vast majority of atheists, thoughts about the supernatural, e.g., Scientology's thetans, are UNimportant and mostly an occasional source of bewilderment and amusement.

[Audie]

Personally I just dislike when people say that a disbelief or an absence of a specific belief means there is NO belief whatsoever.
Ever view we have is based on believing something and atheism is the belief that god(s) don't exist, period.
Not believing in something is simply choosing to believe that whatever evidence is put forth for A is not good enough to warrant being believed in.

Do not Atheist believe in themselves?

You dont? You feel you may actually only exist as a avatar and some lines to text?

[B. W.]

Personally I just dislike when people say that a disbelief or an absence of a specific belief means there is NO belief whatsoever.
Ever view we have is based on believing something and atheism is the belief that god(s) don't exist, period.
Not believing in something is simply choosing to believe that whatever evidence is put forth for A is not good enough to warrant being believed in.

Do not Atheist believe in themselves?

You dont? You feel you may actually only exist as a avatar and some lines to text?

You missed the poignancy of the question...

Since atheist believe (have faith) in themselves, therefore all claims by atheists that atheists do not rely faith is proven invalid...
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