Wednesday, February 09, 2011

An Unbeliever's Near Death Experience

Logical Positivist philosopher A. J. Ayer.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Howard Storm was also an atheist who had an NDE with some heavy content; he recounts his experience here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou2NuDL1STQ

On Unsolved Mysteries (dramatized):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuVXImzoO6Q&feature=related

Some of the things he reports (other than the very standard stuff - e.g. OBE, life review, angelic beings, the light, etc.) are not considered part of the core experience, but nevertheless are very common in NDEs:

1. perceiving his senses to be more acute than they are in normal waking consciousness

2. the "hellish" NDE converted/transformed to a more positive experience by some sort of percieved divine intervention.

3. being told, against his desires, that he needs to return

3. is especially interesting to me. I wonder what part of the brain creates these celestial characters and is so good at writing scripts for them. They so often disappoint the NDEr, telling him that he needs to come back, and then the experience ends abruptly. Such a clever brain, giving such meaningful narrative structure to our hallucinations, because it knows we will just need a good story to believe in, to aid our recovery from such trauma.

Edwardtbabinski said...

Antony Flew didn't believe in an afterlife either. Not even after he acknowledged there could be a "creator." He also continued to argue that the problem of pain was valid.

Neither Flew nor Ayers became Christians. They remained what they always were, British gentlemen philosophers, in the Humean fashion. Just as Lewis remained a smoking, drinking, Oxford don and lover of medieval literature.

awatkins909 said...

Not sure what this red light or the "guardians" are. It's hard to imagine all the laws of nature ceasing to function. Interesting though.

Martin Cooke said...

Logical Positivists should have NDEs like seeing red (and maybe feeling angry about it and concluding that red is a bad colour). Life is a near death experience. Life makes me angry (I'm a philosopher of mathematics).

Anonymous said...

A few months back, an atheist on a thread over at Debunking Christianity had said:

"Anyone who has been declared "clinically dead" who subsequently revives was never really "dead" "

I thought to myself, for goodness sakes doesn't he see the problem with his statement, and so I replied:

"you’re assuming the very thing that is in question: the claim that the dead cannot revive and/or that there is no consciousness beyond death."

But it didn't make a difference, because in a different, later thread, where the subject came up again ( I think because of something a theist said in the comment section) he said the same thing.

Perhaps, instead of what I had replied to him, I should have said "Could your statement be falsified?"

Anonymous said...

Vic,

Thanks for the link. I'm into this kind of stuff.

Ana,

That's just how it goes over there. That, while they talk all that game about delusion! Despite the veneer of rationality, I've found that most atheists who post at DC do not respect critical thinking. Keep questioning, and remember that rational people often read quietly from the sidelines. An opponent's inability to answer your questions speaks volumes.

Papalinton said...

Recent research into near-death experiences [NDEs] and OBEs indicates that the hallucinatory nature of the experience of people during an NDE is the result of the build-up of Carbon Dioxide in the brain, the natural result of the cessation of breathing, and it triggers hallucinogenic and dissociative episodes. Those that die are not able to tell their story [persiflage here, folks] and those that recover are able to relate that experience, because the brain did not die but was 'near death'.

An excellent book newly published, "The God Impulse - Is Religion Hardwired into the Brain?" by Kevin Nelson. [ISBN 978-0-85720-190-4] As stated in the blurb, the first comprehensive, empirically tested, peer-reviewed examination of the reasons we are capable of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences and other mystical states. Nelson is a neuroscientist of some 30 years standing.

Cheers

ARE Near-Death Experiences TRUE? or FALSE? said...

Red also means life and zest. It does not always represent morbid things like death or murder.

NdEfromTENNESSEE said...

I had a near death experience a year ago...no bright light or out of body experience. Being a pompus ass, you would not know a real event from a fairy tail. You simply believe not to believe and one day when you are judged, I wish you good luck with explaining your life's work. It is...after all...impossible for there to be a God in heaven. By the way...have you ever been on a train? Did you see the railroad tracks while on the train? NO! You had FAITH the tracks were there. My faith in God is just like that. I never saw God or ever will in this life, but I have FAITH that God is in heaven. Please explain how Bible prophecy could actually come true...oh yeah, just lucky. Enjoy your life because Hell will be Hell.

NdEfromTENNESSEE said...

What are the odds? I had a widowmaker heart attack ...83% die and another 10% die within the next 12 months. Have a punctured heart during a heart cath, which happens every 5 out of 10,000 procedures...but I also had a punctured lung. Survive a code blue AND survived open heart surgery to repair the hole in my heart...less than 5%. Odds on surviving all these events...anywhere between 1 in 1 million to 1 in 25 million. Ever heard of HSP? I have that ISSUE as you academeacs would say. I am not a prophet or special in any way. I am only saying that I sence things that are going to happen...not from anything other than unerstanding what the events are leading up to an event. You see the dots and the HSP connect the dots. Can you comprehend that? I am trying to keep it simple for ya. What is going to happen in 2012?
The world will not end but will had many important events.
Obama will be re-elected...thanks to the media.
Silver will hit 50.00 an ounce.
Big money will be made in the stock market...in a flat or falling DJIA. Money is to be made on stock OPTIONS...specifically PUTS on stocks that run up...buy puts and watch the profit taking drive the stock down and sell the puts for big profits. The sun will have a very active year...everyone knows about that. Do you suppose it could cause a warming that is not the result of humans? There will be a big argument on that one. Israel is news but not being reported because dead Jews is not bad news...but when Israel reacts to the events in the Middle East, everyone will jump on Israel and th U.S. will continue to separate themselves from Israel to try and gain global good will. Need more? Connect the dots yourself.