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I think you have to count NDEs from all cultures and religions or you need good reason for dismissing NDEs of conflicting meaning.

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Absolutely!

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American / Western experiences are different from Indian experiences which are different from Chinese experiences which are different from African experiences and so on. And then there is overlap in categories of seeing their own respective religious figures or seeing deceased family members.

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Certainly. Great point. I think that if I were to communicate with a certain culture, I would have to do it in a way they would understand. Assuming for a moment that there is a Creator of All Things, would not that creator do the same thing?

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I struggle to see them as confirmation of anything specific.

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I totally get this. I appreciate your thought here. So you would see it as confirmation of what, if anything?

Thanks for sharing! I added it to my amazon wish list.

ChaplainMCH said:

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Thanks for sharing! I added it to my amazon wish list.

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Just curious Chaplain, do you have any patient near death experiences?

Very, very interesting, Kurt. Is there a collection of NDEs from around the world. Book, website, anything? That would be fascinating to read and analyze.

ChaplainMCH said:

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I totally get this. I appreciate your thought here. So you would see it as confirmation of what, if anything?

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I wouldn't go so far as to call it confirmation of anything. I don't think we fully understand what they are. They may be completely a product of our brain or confirmation of God and an afterlife or something else entirely. Its too easy with topics like this to fall into patterns of confirmation bias - the atheist thinks its hallucination and the religious thinks its God. My own bias tells me its hallucination, but there are enough stories and enough similarities to where I tell myself to keep an open mind.

There were some psch studies that tried to look at similarities and difference across cultures. I remember reading them a year or so ago - probably whenever this topic came up last on this board. One was specifically about India and one about Japan and maybe there were others. I'll see if I can find them later.

kurt vonnegut said:

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ChaplainMCH said:

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I totally get this. I appreciate your thought here. So you would see it as confirmation of what, if anything?

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I wouldn't go so far as to call it confirmation of anything. I don't think we fully understand what they are. They may be completely a product of our brain or confirmation of God and an afterlife or something else entirely. Its too easy with topics like this to fall into patterns of confirmation bias - the atheist thinks its hallucination and the religious thinks its God. My own bias tells me its hallucination, but there are enough stories and enough similarities to where I tell myself to keep an open mind.

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I gotcha. Thanks for the response. Confirmation biased is certainly a real danger. I'm glad you mention that.

I can't help but think about the peace it seems to bring to so many...or at the least perhaps a poignant thought (dare I say message?) Despite so many being scared of death, NDE seems to bring peace. The big question, is this self preservation (salve for the dying body) or the comforting embrace of something higher? It seems to me that fear of death, which I tend to think is prevalent even among the faithful, would create visions of fear, sort of how nightmares sometimes manifest from stressful events. But it generally is counter...visions of peaceful things despite the impeding passing.

dermdoc said:

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ChaplainMCH said:

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Thanks for sharing! I added it to my amazon wish list.

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Just curious Chaplain, do you have any patient near death experiences?

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I have heard a few stories and even been with families that talk about how their loved one had just recently had an experience. I don't recall being in the room at the same time though.

I don't fully know what to make of NDEs. Whether they are truly encounters with God/heaven/the afterlife, God can/does use them anecdotally to touch people's hearts. However, they seem to be a poor apologetic.

FWIW, John Burke (founding pastor of Gateway Church in Austin) has done a lot of work on NDEs and written a couple of popular level (non-academic) books on the topic. I'll confess I haven't read them because the topic doesn't particularly interest me. But some people I respect have read them and found them to be insightful. I think their titles are "Imagine Heaven" and "Imagine the God of Heaven."

Jabin said:

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Very, very interesting, Kurt. Is there a collection of NDEs from around the world. Book, website, anything? That would be fascinating to read and analyze.

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This is the most academic, thought out, rigorous exercise in documenting people being able to see, move and interact with others during NDEs.

https://www.amazon.com/Self-Does-Not-Die-Experiences/dp/0997560800

I read it, its a great book. There are things in it that are beyond human ability to have access to. They purposefully remove the religious outcomes to try to focus on the academic pursuit of NDEs.

kurt vonnegut said:

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ChaplainMCH said:

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I totally get this. I appreciate your thought here. So you would see it as confirmation of what, if anything?

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I wouldn't go so far as to call it confirmation of anything. I don't think we fully understand what they are. They may be completely a product of our brain or confirmation of God and an afterlife or something else entirely. Its too easy with topics like this to fall into patterns of confirmation bias - the atheist thinks its hallucination and the religious thinks its God. My own bias tells me its hallucination, but there are enough stories and enough similarities to where I tell myself to keep an open mind.

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I particularly drawn to this doctor's NDE because he is a neurologist. And he can specifically point to times where he should have had no brain function at all, but he was in the midst of an extremely vivid experience.



I don't endorse this guy's channel, just think this is an interesting interview. The doctor, Eben Alexander, has his own books and interviews going in more detail.

Not unrelated, but more affirmation that there is more to our limited understanding about the world around us.

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One of the Dominican friars I enjoyed having discussions about the unseen or spiritual world as I describe it, was a certain priest from Mexico, Fr. Gerardo Guerra OP (1936-2019) who was more like an old professor that had studied natural "energy forces" for decades. Fr. Guerra held multiple degrees (i.e., PhD) in sciences from some of Mexico's top universities and had devoted his life to healing.

When I say, healing, he was sought out by many, for a real gift God had given him, but that he related to both eastern and western medical practice. In particular he talked about the energy centers (chakra points) of our bodies and how they can be "adjusted" with other forces. On several occasions I witnessed him "focus" heal people on the phone with his hands held up. On occasion he would use a small pendulum to "heal" clients near and far.

Curious, I asked him where this bad "energy" went? He said out back to the universe. That it just left where it was and went somewhere else, he didn't know where. Being a skeptic, I asked him if he, a trained engineer, scientist, philosopher/theologian, and Catholic priest- if he actually believed in this form of "spiritual healing"? He was quick to point out that it was not "spiritual" in the sense that most people understand it, as something supernatural. Instead it was, in his experience, very natural and very scientific, even predictable. He said that in the "east" this way of healing was not as uncommon and more accepted. Not the case in the west. So he understood that for many Americans, it was unexplainable and therefore uncomfortable.

At one of our meetings, Fr. Guerra and I were discussing the effect of water on paths of energy. I had seen him use diving rods before, and he proceeded to show me how they worked. I held them in my hand, or not held them just allowed them to move freely, as we walked around the house. Sure enough as we crossed where a drain line was located the rods crossed- all by themselves. As I moved to the left and right, they uncrossed. Mind blown!

OK, last Fr. Guerra story - We (Austin Dominican Group) were at someone's house that was near a cemetery. Always the curious one, I sought out Fr. Guerra, and proceeded to ask him about ghosts. "They are real." What about demons? "Of course." - How does it work? Why are some people harassed by these spirits and other are not? He didn't know, but he proceed to discuss energy that can be "imprinted" on people and places. The cemetery for instance can have a lot of bad energy stored from people who had been murdered and buried. Same with houses where bad things had happened. Then he threw me a curveball- pictures, objects, and even movies can store this energy.

He was a wonderful man of God!

ChaplainMCH said:

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Quote:

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I think you have to count NDEs from all cultures and religions or you need good reason for dismissing NDEs of conflicting meaning.

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Absolutely!

Quote:

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American / Western experiences are different from Indian experiences which are different from Chinese experiences which are different from African experiences and so on. And then there is overlap in categories of seeing their own respective religious figures or seeing deceased family members.

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Certainly. Great point. I think that if I were to communicate with a certain culture, I would have to do it in a way they would understand. Assuming for a moment that there is a Creator of All Things, would not that creator do the same thing?

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I struggle to see them as confirmation of anything specific.

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I totally get this. I appreciate your thought here. So you would see it as confirmation of what, if anything?

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Great response

one MEEN Ag said:

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Jabin said:

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Very, very interesting, Kurt. Is there a collection of NDEs from around the world. Book, website, anything? That would be fascinating to read and analyze.

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This is the most academic, thought out, rigorous exercise in documenting people being able to see, move and interact with others during NDEs.

https://www.amazon.com/Self-Does-Not-Die-Experiences/dp/0997560800

I read it, its a great book. There are things in it that are beyond human ability to have access to. They purposefully remove the religious outcomes to try to focus on the academic pursuit of NDEs.

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That's on my reading list now, also! Thanks!

ChaplainMCH said:

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one MEEN Ag said:

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Jabin said:

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Very, very interesting, Kurt. Is there a collection of NDEs from around the world. Book, website, anything? That would be fascinating to read and analyze.

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This is the most academic, thought out, rigorous exercise in documenting people being able to see, move and interact with others during NDEs.

https://www.amazon.com/Self-Does-Not-Die-Experiences/dp/0997560800

I read it, its a great book. There are things in it that are beyond human ability to have access to. They purposefully remove the religious outcomes to try to focus on the academic pursuit of NDEs.

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That's on my reading list now, also! Thanks!

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Just downloaded it. Near death experiences are consistent with my Christian faith. God is so much bigger than we believe.

One of my great uncles had a NDE. Weird thing was, when he woke up, he was able to repeat some things he had heard the doctors saying while he was "dead".

I don't know what to make of it.