I’m not quite following the semantic distinctions you’re attempting to make here. In any case, if descriptions of NDE experiences are just going to reflect the backgrounds of those experiencing them – for whatever reason – of what worth are those descriptions in helping us learn anything useful about an afterlife if they’re frequently and substantially different.
Your question implies that the terms we use about our everyday experiences are useless when it comes to describing unusual experiences. In other words you are imposing an impossible condition. How do you expect me to describe my experience? With neologisms?
My question implies nothing of the sort. It’s based on a simple, indisputable fact: people who have NDEs describe different versions of an afterlife (
see here). Christians describe one that is consistent with their backgrounds, Hindus one that is consistent with theirs, Buddhists one that is consistent with theirs, etc. etc, etc… Some, like yourself, don’t glimpse anything of an afterlife. If all of that’s true (and I don’t see how you can deny it), then, IMO, the significant, disparate nature of NDEs renders them useless in telling us anything useful about an afterlife.
Moreover my description did not reflect my background in any way whatsoever because it was the only occasion in my life when I have had such an experience. Your objections are based solely on the unverifiable assumption that all unusual experiences have a scientific explanation.
Others have already given you plausible, empirically-based naturalistic explanations for what you experienced. Accept them or not, I really don’t care, but don’t be surprised if you see them again in any future discussion of NDEs.
It’s not good form to invent rationales for others’ objections. As a matter of fact, I do not think that all paranormal experiences will necessarily have scientific explanations – there may be things we’ll never understand. I do, however, reject all of the NDEs
I’ve read about so far as evidence for an afterlife for all the reasons I’ve already given and more. One mistake I think others make is to assume that all currently unexplained phenomena will be forever unexplained and therefore, can only be attributed to the supernatural.
Your cynical choice of “fluffy pink clouds and women in peasant dresses too” is a deliberate, sarcastic distortion of my interpretation of the experience which does not even consider the existence, let alone the nature of an afterlife. I stressed that I saw nothing except myself.
The two questions I posed were posed as a package. The answer to the second, depends upon the answer to the first. Again, with emphasis added, they were:
Do you think Dr. Alexander proved there is an afterlife? If so, will you be expecting to see fluffy pink clouds and women in peasant dresses too?
Noting the conditional nature of the second question, you can see this question had nothing whatsoever to do with your past experience.
Dr. Alexander, a Christian, claims to to have seen fluffy, pink clouds and a woman in a peasant dress in what he further claims was a glimpse of the afterlife. For the sake of discussion, I have and am conceding that he really did experience those things and he really did glimpse the afterlife.
In view of that concession, when I ask if you expect to see those things too – **I am not asking about or commenting upon your past experience **-- I’m asking if you, another Christian,
expect to see those things too in the afterlife. Given the thread’s topic and the religious affiliation you share with Dr. Alexander, I still think those are fair and appropriate questions.
I’d still like to know your answer to the first question, but given that you’ve already declined to answer it twice, I’m not holding out much hope for that.
I agree with you, Chris. Your point is often forgotten or not realised even by Christians in the science-dominated culture in which we live.