Hey Doubter! I don't have my books with me, but you can go into any decent bookstore and find decent ones. I have to say this - and this will only be of interest to the Christians - that some of the NDE experience does not at first glance match up with Christian theology. Here's a couple of examples: 1. Many of the experiences of the NDErs communicating with beings recieve a "New Agey" message. 2. My friend, who was as far as I could tell a solid Christian, had a very negative tunnel/being experience. 3. The great majority of NDErs experience a "heaven-like" experience, i.e. non-negative. This of course implies universalism. For these reasons and a few others, I think it is wise to consider the NDE "preparation for death" sequence as at least partially in the category that we would place a vision, dream, etc., i.e. partially or possibly spiritual in nature. Hope that makes sense.
OK, fair enough, you're basically saying that your belief, and therefore this thread, is based on a supposition on your part with no proof, and therefore, irrational. I can live with that.
exactly. furthermore, topics like reincarnation--no one ever says they were a poor peasant--they were always some kind of king etc. LOL ! surfer
I am no expert on this but I believe that many of the experiences were negative. Although probably not meeting the devil. These negative experiences were the ones that caused a major change in the life of the NDE person and that is one of the points of the studies.
These experiences are nothing like standard New Age stuff. I didn't mean to imply that at all. While they do definitely sometimes have contact with beings/God, I've never read of one of them saying , "I met Buddha." or something like that. It probably happens though, but again it's nothing like standard New Agey stuff in my opinion. Nor do they come back and start their own religion! Child experiencers in fact grow up and have the reaction, "Get me to a church." They don't care what kind of a church - they just want a church. (The author was definitely NOT a Christian.)
Also, as I said 15% of NDErs have a very negative experience. In the case of my friend, and this is quite common, she was led by two dark beings down a dark tunnel "into the earth". And she would absolutely swear it was real because it was so highly, highly vivid to her. If you saw her talk about it, you would know it was way beyond any dream-type experience.
The only thing that is irrational is for either one of us to throw out everything that does not fit our paradigm...