Argument about NDE (Near-Death Experiences)

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**Many Christians find the phenomenon of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) to be proof that “God” and the “afterlife” exist. As described in this article, an NDE contains these characteristics:

The sudden awareness that one has had a 'fatal" accident and not survived.
An out-of-body experience. A sensation of floating above one’s body and seeing the surrounding area.
Pleasant feelings, calmness.
A sensation of moving upwards through a tunnel or narrow passageway.
Meeting deceased relatives or spiritual figures
Encountering a being of light, or a light (possibly a religious figure, i.e. Jesus, God, Buddha)
Being given a life review
A feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by a reluctance to return
Things like heart attacks, near-drowning and severe loss of blood can all trigger near death experiences.
NDEs have been experienced by thousands of people and have been widely cataloged in a variety of books. Many of these books are “spiritual” or “religious” in nature.

What is not mentioned is that there is a drug called Ketamine that produces all of the elements of an NDE when it is injected into normal, non-dying people. In other words, an NDE is a natural, chemically induced state that the human brain enters. The trigger for an NDE is lack of oxygen to the brain and body. If you read scientific papers like these, you find that there is a completely chemical and completely non-spiritual reason for the features of every NDE.

Is this a direct proof that God is imaginary? No. However, it is a direct proof that the NDE (which many people use as “indisputable” proof that God and eternal life exist) has no supernatural meaning. We can scientificaly prove NDEs to be chemical side-effects rather than “a gateway to the afterlife” as many religious believers claim.**

how would you argue this
 
I guess I would ask why this is not being injected into the worst of the worst in the prison population to be somewhat fecitious.

All kidding aside, not all NDE are pleasant. Some are about the bad side of things. But to me it all boils down to how we are personally to take this. This could be some private revelation for an individual. If it is in line with Church teachings it has more credance. Some NDE experiences I have read about have questions for me concerning the faith.

mdcpensive1
 
I don’t think it can be argued that they are not the result of scientifically explainable phenomena.

I also don’t think that means that they aren’t from God. 😉
 
I am confused by NDEs. Some NDEs present a doctrine of reincarnatiion, some of ressurection. Some speak about Jesus returning to judge the world soon, others speak of Jesus’ return only in the spiritual sense. One girl said JPII was in hell, others say hell is only temporary.

Given the proofs God gives of the Catholic church like miracles, visions, and Marian warnings that all contradict this “multiple paths to God” presentation, I look at NDEs with suspicion.
 
I was unaware there was a drug out there that could simulate the same effects as the near death experience. From what I’ve read about individuals who have had a near death experience, most appear to undergo a radical transformation where they are apt to be more “spiritually inclined” and live out the rest of their lives trying to make a difference in the world. It is as if their experience has opened the door to a greater awareness and understanding of this world and the next. Does this particular drug move people to live out their lives in this way as well?
 
ketamine is a tranquilizer , sometimes used as an anesthetic

but, I don’t know about near death experiences, I hear them with caution.
 
Not all Catholics (definitely not myself) believe near death experiences prove much of anything. There is nothing in Catholic teaching to suggest that God can’t tell when you’re dead, thank you very much. Souls do not leave the body and begin their journey to the Kingdom of Heaven simply because one is close to death. The body dies first, then the soul exits it.

Additionally, while these experiences may or may not have occurred, you can’t use them as proof for anything because the event itself can’t be proven.
 
My faith is grounded in the risen lord Jesus Christ, and not any other phenomena, but some of these things like nde’s are very compelling, but not sufficient in themselves to either base or reject belief in God.

Ketamine isn’t anywhere near a complete explanation of near death experiences. First of all I would venture a guess that ketamine had been administered to people with full brain function. There is sizeable evidence that actual nde’s occur in people with total brain death with flat eeg’s, and no brainstem activity indicated by fixed and dilated pupils, and no gag reflex. These are people who would qualify as organ donors.
youtube.com/watch?v=aP4CRkcof7w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Dr. Raymond Moody is one of the leading researchers in nde’s and has recently been studying shared nde’s
youtube.com/watch?v=lWjYjsh8i0w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Then there is the curious case of pam reynolds
youtube.com/watch?v=WNbdUEqDB-k&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I will grant that none of these cases are a return from biological death, but there are elements that cant be explained by a strict mind brain connection. There is real evidence for
the persistence of human consciousness apart from the brain, and body.

Skeptics can always find a way out of anything particularly something they don’t want to believe. It is not crudulous to accept upon verifiable evidence that not all nde’s have a total natural explanation.
 
ForeverRome500 said:
**Many Christians find the phenomenon of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) to be proof that “God” and the “afterlife” exist. As described in this article, an NDE contains these characteristics:

The sudden awareness that one has had a 'fatal" accident and not survived.
An out-of-body experience. A sensation of floating above one’s body and seeing the surrounding area.
Pleasant feelings, calmness.
A sensation of moving upwards through a tunnel or narrow passageway.
Meeting deceased relatives or spiritual figures
Encountering a being of light, or a light (possibly a religious figure, i.e. Jesus, God, Buddha)
Being given a life review
A feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by a reluctance to return
Things like heart attacks, near-drowning and severe loss of blood can all trigger near death experiences.
NDEs have been experienced by thousands of people and have been widely cataloged in a variety of books. Many of these books are “spiritual” or “religious” in nature.

What is not mentioned is that there is a drug called Ketamine that produces all of the elements of an NDE when it is injected into normal, non-dying people. In other words, an NDE is a natural, chemically induced state that the human brain enters. The trigger for an NDE is lack of oxygen to the brain and body. If you read scientific papers like these, you find that there is a completely chemical and completely non-spiritual reason for the features of every NDE.

Is this a direct proof that God is imaginary? No. However, it is a direct proof that the NDE (which many people use as “indisputable” proof that God and eternal life exist) has no supernatural meaning. We can scientificaly prove NDEs to be chemical side-effects rather than “a gateway to the afterlife” as many religious believers claim.**

how would you argue this
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You can scientifically prove no such thing. You can scientifically prove that living patients with normal brain activity who have been administered ketamine have unusual brain activity that appear to mimic SOME nde’s, but that is all you can scientifically prove about chemical reactions in normal functioning human brains.

Besides, if nde’s can only be attributed to either lack of oxygen in a dying brain, or to chemical reactions you would expect 100% of people who are clinically dead to have nde’s, and only about 18% of people who are clinically dead have nde’s. Those who do usually come back without fear of death. A study in Children that we’re clinically dead, but did not have nde’s as they matured has shown that they actually have greater death anxiety than the normal population.
 
Hokomai said:
Life itself is a near-death experience.
Click to expand...
True that… The inescapable reality for 100% of human beings.
I can’t remember which poet said, “ask not for whom the bell tolls… The bell tolls for thee”.

Speaking of reality, many nde’s report that the Spiritual realm is the ultimate reality where everything is much much more vivid than in this physical form, emotions are greatly heightened, as well as sight… Colors are reported that don’t exist here, hearing is greatly heightened as well, with sounds that don’t exist in the physical realm.
Of course none of those reports can be verified, but they are reported by a large percentage of nde’s, just an interesting side note. I’ve picked that up from Raymond Moody who studies this phenomena for a living.
 
How can there be “colors which don’t exist here”? Do you believe that the spectrum of visible light increases after death? All this NDE stuff isn’t religion or theology, it is wishful thinking and superstition.
 
PrincepsAuguste said:
Not all Catholics (definitely not myself) believe near death experiences prove much of anything. There is nothing in Catholic teaching to suggest that God can’t tell when you’re dead, thank you very much. Souls do not leave the body and begin their journey to the Kingdom of Heaven simply because one is close to death. The body dies first, then the soul exits it.

Additionally, while these experiences may or may not have occurred, you can’t use them as proof for anything because the event itself can’t be proven.
Click to expand...
You are right in that the body is dead when the soul leaves, but you have to remember, it must be possible to have the Lord give life back as He did to the little girl who died (forgot which gospel). I may call that a NDE at least for her. In a case like this, it is not a reincarnation or a resurrection, but just a reuniting of soul and body.
mdcpensive1
 
Personally I do not believe any of these alleged NDE’s are real, at least nothing supernatural.
 
ForeverRome500 said:
**Many Christians find the phenomenon of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) to be proof that “God” and the “afterlife” exist. As described in this article, an NDE contains these characteristics:

The sudden awareness that one has had a 'fatal" accident and not survived.
An out-of-body experience. A sensation of floating above one’s body and seeing the surrounding area.
Pleasant feelings, calmness.
A sensation of moving upwards through a tunnel or narrow passageway.
Meeting deceased relatives or spiritual figures
Encountering a being of light, or a light (possibly a religious figure, i.e. Jesus, God, Buddha)
Being given a life review
A feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by a reluctance to return
Things like heart attacks, near-drowning and severe loss of blood can all trigger near death experiences.
NDEs have been experienced by thousands of people and have been widely cataloged in a variety of books. Many of these books are “spiritual” or “religious” in nature.

What is not mentioned is that there is a drug called Ketamine that produces all of the elements of an NDE when it is injected into normal, non-dying people. In other words, an NDE is a natural, chemically induced state that the human brain enters. The trigger for an NDE is lack of oxygen to the brain and body. If you read scientific papers like these, you find that there is a completely chemical and completely non-spiritual reason for the features of every NDE.

Is this a direct proof that God is imaginary? No. However, it is a direct proof that the NDE (which many people use as “indisputable” proof that God and eternal life exist) has no supernatural meaning. We can scientificaly prove NDEs to be chemical side-effects rather than “a gateway to the afterlife” as many religious believers claim.**

how would you argue this
Click to expand...
Wait wait wait OK OK so let me get t his straight. If you inject ketamine into a living person then they will somehow spontaneously get the EXACT SAME hallucination and have the EXACT SAME experience as the NDE people? First of all I’d have to see it to believe it, second of all, if this is the case, then how does this prove anything against NDE’s being actually spiritual experiences? All it would prove is that ketamine can put the brain into such a state that it thinks it’s dead, and thus triggering the experience, a sort of cheap trick. If you’ve read the other NDE stories you will find that they had no brain activity during that time and were able to see their own surgery and very minute details that would not have been possible given their state. It seems to me like this “ketamine” theory is a bit of a far fetched one.
 
ForeverRome500 said:
What is not mentioned is that there is a drug called Ketamine that produces all of the elements of an NDE when it is injected into normal, non-dying people. In other words, an NDE is a natural, chemically induced state that the human brain enters. The trigger for an NDE is lack of oxygen to the brain and body. If you read scientific papers like these, you find that there is a completely chemical and completely non-spiritual reason for the features of every NDE.
Click to expand...
I will observe that this does not account for the stories wherein while experiencing the NDE things are observed that would not be observable.

That said NDE should not serve as basis for understanding of faith as if one is in the spiritual world one may encounter both the good and the bad and the bad may masquarade as the good.

I will also say that the popular accounts indicated NDEs are almost always positive, peaceful, sweetness and light. This is not a factually consistent experience but rather is a bias by idealogy of some in the field. There are plenty of NDEs that are dark.

Likewise what people see around them at the hour of death is not always good things. Often its the opposite. The books NDE/OBE and related books stating that death is peaceful/happy have a bias.
 
Well they did mention the “out of body experience” but what they failed to include was that the people having the “out of body experience” can actually see particular details of the environment during this experience. For example, I watched a documentary once about this subject, and they interviewed a man who had almost died during a heart surgery, and he said that he saw the doctor was doing some strange thing with his arms. (This was an exercise the doctor did before every surgery.)

When he woke up, everyone was stunned. He had been unconscious with his face covered and yet, with no prior knowledge of the doctor or his exercise, he had known about it.

The documentary also cited another case where a man that almost died in a hospital had risen as far as above the building to see a lone shoe on the roof. When he told his friends, they went up on the roof, and sure enough, there was a lone shoe.

You can find the documentary on netflix if you want, i thought it was cool.
 
300WhiteKnights said:
Well they did mention the “out of body experience” but what they failed to include was that the people having the “out of body experience” can actually see particular details of the environment during this experience. For example, I watched a documentary once about this subject, and they interviewed a man who had almost died during a heart surgery, and he said that he saw the doctor was doing some strange thing with his arms. (This was an exercise the doctor did before every surgery.)

When he woke up, everyone was stunned. He had been unconscious with his face covered and yet, with no prior knowledge of the doctor or his exercise, he had known about it.

The documentary also cited another case where a man that almost died in a hospital had risen as far as above the building to see a lone shoe on the roof. When he told his friends, they went up on the roof, and sure enough, there was a lone shoe.

You can find the documentary on netflix if you want, i thought it was cool.
Click to expand...
I do not believe in out of body experiences or near death experiences if they are being claimed as something supernatural.
 
PrincepsAuguste said:
How can there be “colors which don’t exist here”? Do you believe that the spectrum of visible light increases after death? All this NDE stuff isn’t religion or theology, it is wishful thinking and superstition.
Click to expand...
Who said it was religion, or theology? I’m saying that it is a curious phenomena that some people near death have experienced. I do find it strange when people make definitive proclomations about things they couldn’t possibly know. You have no idea whether it is wishful thinking or not, unless you’ve had a near death experience, nor could you know the reality of those experiences by people who have been near death. I’m not inclined to dismiss other peoples experiences as wishful thinking just because I haven’t experienced them myself.

How could anyone know what the visible spectrum of light is like in heaven because the visible spectrum of light here in the physical universe is the only one we can experience. Heaven is a spiritual reality, and the universe is a physical reality. Light here is through electromagnetism. I’ve read some people who have had nde’s describe the light in heaven as a spiritual light emanating from God himself, and what that light is like or what colors it contains is beyond human language, or understanding. In fact human language is completely inadequate for describing heavenly realities. People who have had nde’s draw corollaries of their indescribable experiences with realities that we understand, and which they can explain.

Since none of the people who have had nde’s have come back from biological death It is impossible to know how much of the reality of heaven they experienced if any at all.

The only definitive proclamation I’m willing to make about heaven is “no eye has seen, and no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9. Since i can imagine colors there that aren’t here then that would be an insignificant aspect of the reality of being in the presence of God, and seeing Him face to face in His infinite glory.
 
I brought this thread back to life in an effort to get a Catholic take. Catholics historically have always embraced the discoveries of science without a fear of it destroying their faith. Science is also of God.

I’ve always had a fascination with NDE’s. I’ve read Howard Storm, Raymond Moody, Kubler-Ross and others. Recently I’ve read the most intrigueing explanation by a neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, in this new book Proof of Heaven. He has a marvelous scientific and spiritual explanation of his own NDE experience.

Any priests of apologists read this book?
 
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