An NDE sermon
I gave this talk at my church last Sunday. The first half is just a summary of NDE research which should be relevant to everyone here (start at about 6:30 and ignore my preamble), but after that it does go down the Christian road…want to warn you so if you prefer to avoid that, you can stop.
Watching now. Interesting. Rgds Paul
Thank you for posting your video. I think it’s curious that you didn’t mention your own personal experiences (or maybe I missed it?). I think you said in the previous thread that someone approached you about their personal NDE. I’m guessing this was after the lecture since I don’t recall it being mentioned in the video. Did the individual say anything specific about the room that made him believe he really did see the room he was being operated in during his procedure? Did he mention if he was unconscious already when he arrived into the room?
I did mention my experience…maybe you’d nodded off at the point 🙂
He said he saw some very specific lights, and when he was better he went back to the doctor and asked if he’d been put in a different room. When he was shown the recovery room, he instantly recognised the lights which he’d seen from above. He was never conscious in that room.
An absolutely fantastic experience he shared with you, dear Orson. And I am impressed how much this person trusted you to share this with you. Your speech about NDEs probably was the first time he realized such a thing exists and it happens to other people as well. So he felt comfortable to come up to you. He must have felt so relieves in that moment and also blessed. You are doing good work. You are actually helping people. And this is rare these days in this age and time.
Kind of reminds me of this response by Luis. Not sure if I posted this before.
https://www.quora.com/Do-any-doctors-or-scientists-believe-reported-incidents-of-near-death-experiences-or-is-it-a-more-common-belief-that-the-typical-NDE-is-caused-by-a-dying-brain-releasing-small-amounts-of-DMT-resulting-in-a-common
I had your video on in the background while I was doing something but I may revisit it over the weekend. I appreciate you sharing your experience.
There must be loads like this. It was pretty cool that he came up and told me. He is very reliable. Interestingly another guy came up and told about a friend of his who had come to him privately as had an experience that scared the Willie’s out of him. He was not dead, but had an OBE and found himself on the roof of his building. He went up afterward to check and it was exactly as he’d seen it. My friend had no reason not to believe him.
Dear Orson,
As you are an important accompanion in my life for many years via this blog I’d like to have your insight on this quote of a famous rock climber which shook me a bit and made me question if what he said is true and this is all it is about on all of our search for a deeper meaning and truth behind the questions of NDEs and other phenomena.
Of course, I am brave enough to admit that the idea of there being nothing scares me but a lot of things science finds and dismisses because it does not fit their planned research also makes me question science and materialism.
“The notion of God is absent from Free Solo. With a movie like this, the audience might expect a scene where everyone is praying for your safety. But you’re not into that? No, I’m very anti-religion. I think it’s all just medieval superstition. Religion relies on some desire for a spiritual connection and I do get that from just being out in Yosemite. I get that feeling of grandeur and awe in the world sitting on a cliff at sunset, watching the mountains glow pink, that a lot of people get through religious faith.
Do you think that your being an atheist is linked to your attitude about death? I’ve certainly thought about my mortality more than most. I think some people turn to faith as a crutch, to avoid thinking about mortality — you know, “Well, I’ll carry on forever in some eternal kingdom.” But the harder thing is to stare into the abyss and understand that when it’s over, it’s over.” – Alex Honnold
My fear keeps telling me that this is all that is to it. That I am just cherry picking and too afraid to settle with my final mortality – but it sounds much more like a mean state of depression to me because an inner voice usually speaks kind to you and encurages you to stay positive and healthy instead of putting you down, it’s not “normal”.
Please share kind words with me and your view on this quote. It would mean the world to me, dear Orson. And I hope this is not too religious.
Hi Magina, I suggest you read the work of Lisa Miller and some of her colleagues. Spirituality is hardwired in our brain, it’s not just wishful thinking. It doesn’t answer your question, but it shows it’s not just superstition.
Hi Megina,
I am so happy that you have found my blog helpful over the years.
It is entirely possible that this atheist mountain climber is right. However, for that to be the case:
1. Millions of people who have had NDEs and claim to be certain that consciousness persists beyond death, resulting in profound life changing attitudes, would have to be deluded fools or liars.
2. Thousands of doctors who have been told about OBEs in which they were participants, and who believed there was no natural explanation, would also have to be fools or liars.
3. Tens of millions if not billions of people, including myself, who claim to have religious experiences that defy natural explanation, would also have to be delusional.
4. Life would have needed to form by natural processes, and this is impossible.
5. The universe would have needed to come from nothing.
Ultimately, as I say in my talk, and in my book Did Jesus Die For Nothing, I believe that the purpose of this life is two fold -a. for us to seek and find God, then obey him by loving him and those around us, and b. In doing so, identify ourselves to God that we are suitable companions for him to share eternal life with in his eternal kingdom.
Ultimately it is quite simply fact that there is absolutely zero evidence that the climber, or other atheists are right. Zero. It is purely a belief based on no facts whatsoever…none. On the other side, there is a boatload of evidence that God exists, and that we have the potential to live eternally.
Finally as I say in my book, all the time you sit on the fence, you are unlikely to find more truth, it is only when you take a step of faith that more truth is revealed to you. That is my experience anyway.
Hope this helps you.
Just to add. My Mum, who I loved very much, died yesterday. While I am sad I will not see her again in this life, I am not mourning as I am certain that she is not dead. CERTAIN. She had a true faith, and always put others before herself. She passed the test and is now in a much better place.
That is how real my faith is to me.
Very sorry to hear that Orson
Thanks mate. She had been suffering with cancer for a long time, so was a relief in the end.
Watched it, but I’ll admit I felt a twinge of disappointment. I had thought that you were *trying* to approach NDE OBE observations with an open mind, but from this talk it’s clear the data we have from NDE OBE’s caused some internal conflict with your Christian faith, and you quite openly admit you’ve cherry picked the data to rationalise the NDE OBE with your faith.
I don’t have a problem with that, but it’s a little disappointing. And by hitching your understanding of NDE OBE data to your faith, you seem to have precluded yourself from evolving a different understanding. I mean, I think you’ve tied the NDE OBE to your faith, and by doing so, you’ve turned the NDE OBE into some sort of metaphorical bomb that now threatens your faith, and I wonder now whether that means you can never allow it to explode?
I would never have done that, and I never did that. I’ve had several powerful experiences since childhood. And I’ve just lived with them, and the conflicts they expose about the way I’ve been taught to understand the world. It’s been quite uncomfortable at times to live in the world like that (cognitive dissonance etc) for many years… in conflict with the way I, and everyone else was taught to understand the world.
I searched, and search and searched to understand how I could combine our solid wakeful shared observations (science), with my (and others) anomalous subjective observations. As I searched and read, and learned, I was naturally forced further and further away from the existing frameworks which are available, and now I have reached a perspective on these issues so far away from that of other people, that I can’t even communicate it other people. There is just no common frame of reference anymore between me and other people which would allow me to communicate these ideas.
These ideas change the most pressing question from ‘what happens after death’, and bring it right back to how we can better understand life.
Experience itself, literally has a massive component from which it is formed – that must be Acausal. I’ll say it again, a major component of how experience is constructed is Acausal, as opposed to the causal (causality) idea which dominates our thinking today. Matching patterns outside of spacetime (Experience) connect different spacetimes together (glue them together). Experience is a shared construction.
That’s why you can’t evangelize people, why they are closed books.
The base mathematical structure we use to describe the relationships from which our Experience is constructed – is shared. But the networks we build out of those base mathematical structures are different, so they can’t be directly addressed.
We have no fundamental privacy, because we *share* a common base mathematical structure. But the different networks we build out of these base mathematical structures provides us with a practical sort of privacy, but it’s not fundamental.
That’s why humans have the common anomalous experience of gaining knowledge, in a way that defies common ideas of causality.
I think you slightly misunderstood my position. Yes, I decided that I needed to cherry pick the data, but there is no choice because the data is contradictory and therefore the data alone does not provide an answer. If you choose all the data, it is not possible to form a conclusion. This is exemplified by Parnia’s approach which is almost egregious in its route (“reversing” the findings of the Cassol paper to suit his beliefs). But NDEs have never challenged my faith, they have always supported it, but SOME claims from NDEism challenged a central tenet of my faith – that only through faith in Jesus are you guaranteed eternal life. My talk was on how I fully resolved that single issue and find it entirely logical so am extremely comfortable with it. NDEs never challenged any other aspect of my faith at all, so there is no “bomb waiting to go off”, as you put it…the bomb has been defused.
Now, although I do struggle to understand some of your thinking, I can see that the contradictions from NDEs possibly support your line of thinking quite well, as such I can see why you would cling to that line of thinking as a foundation for interpretating the observations. However, the contradictions in NDEs also support my line of thinking too i.e. that free choice must be retained. As I say at the end of my talk, you can choose your line of thinking to be true or my Christian line of thinking to be true, but the consequences of being wrong for you are dire, but not for me.
Given that situation, I am happy to continue with my position, particularly given all the other myriad pieces of evidence that I have accumulated through my experience as a Christian over the years.
I jotted down a load of notes as I was watching your talk. I had a long list of disagreements with your take on the NDE/veridical OBE phenomena, many of which I’ve come across before from other people, but I think it’s probably pointless to go through them here.
The bible had not been something I’d taken much interest in (other than being introduced to the gospel of Thomas by a close Methodist friend some years ago – something I really like).
But earlier this year I really dived into researching the bibles historicity, motivated by seeing many comments mainly from evangelicals that 1. the Gospel of Thomas was a fraud, 2. was dated much later than the canonicals, and 3. was Gnostic. It turned into a great big project, that went all over the place, as my style of investigation generally does.
Anyway, I found my research very interesting, and learnt a great deal I did not know, and a great deal my learned Methodist friend did not know either. Don’t worry, I’m not going there if you’re capable of holding a position where there are ‘dire’ consequences for me if I’m wrong… 🙂
Believe what you want, if I’m wrong you have nothing to worry about.
I physically wince, when I hear people using that style of argument.
Pascals wager/precautionary principle is a deliberately disingenuous one-sided/lopsided binary style of argument, designed to fool people, into thinking there is only one option they can take from only two possible options. I first came across it when I was debating dangerous global warming.
It’s usually based on an emotional/fear based argument. It applies downside risks to ‘doing nothing’ – without any evidence. While claiming pure rewards for the ‘doing-something’ proposal – without any downside cost/risk analysis of that proposal.
A proper risk assessment would look at all the evidence, produce a range of proposals (not just two), and carefully weigh both the ‘risks’ AND ‘rewards’ for each proposal.
If one applies the same standard of evidence and analysis to both sides of this false binary argument – it collapses.
It’s most effective when used as a technique against people who have a deference to authority, combined with low tolerance for ambiguity – a need for cognitive closure, and associated with lower openness to experience.
I would agree with you, but in this instance you are presented with a binary choice and in the end every argument, every choice is either binary, or broken down into a smaller binary choices.
I love your example of climate alarmism. I am of the view that the evidence about this issue is not always straightforward, and that what the alarmists demand is too costly, but at the same time the cost of being wrong is high enough that we should at least try, within reason to do something, both in terms of transitioning to suitable new technology and preparing for now inevitable climate change. But while I understand the analogy, and why you say it applies here, I would argue it is a different to this situation as the costs are absolute and terminal, whereas with climate change even changes on the upper end of the scale, while damaging for billions, are ultimately manageable because humans are highly adaptable. Eternal life vs death on the other hand, and especially death by destruction in Hell, are binary outcomes which are dramatically different and terminal. So here is the choice of binary questions and answers:
Is there one ultimate God? Yes or No. He could be a narcissist, he could be a God of love, he could be an amalgamation of multiple consiousness, but ultimately is there a being who appears to be the ultimate source of existence with ultimate power over existence? Yes or NO. A binary answer. If yes, then:
Are the claims made in the gospels, particularly the gospel of John – namely that Jesus was God true? Of course this is composed of many binary questions related mainly to whether the gospel of John was accurate. It is impossible to provide sufficient evidence for a definitive binary answer, but nonetheless a binary answer exists. Yes or No. If Yes then:
Jesus was God, and he presented a binary choice – if you hear his words, and you believe him, you will not die but will live eternally, but if you reject him then you will die, and this may require destruction of your soul in Hell. There are nuances to what he says that I go into in my book about those who have not encountered his words, or who have not rejected him, but are on a journey, but ultimately he is very clear that REJECTION of him has severe consequences.
The wager stands. Once you are fully aware of the teachings of Jesus, you are presented with a binary choice, and if he was right, binary outcomes – eternal life or death of the soul (maybe in Hell).
Most choose not to belief. If the answers to the first two questions are no, then the third question becomes irrelevant, but if they are yes, then it is binary.
Sorry, I would have liked to have given this more time, but I am extremely busy today.
This isn’t about NDEs directly but it talks about consciousness and how the brain is more active under general anesthesia than previously thought.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261015003440.htm
Ha, I wouldn’t know. I’ve been under anesthesia many times this year and can’t remember anything. 2 times I remember I had a nice dream before I woke up.
Their focus in this article is the hippocampus but a recent article regarding conciousness refuted by testing and showing no results that the hippocampus is not where the conciousness resides or is the most active. So I am not sure what they’re trying to achieve there.
In general… All they found out is that, wow, we are dreaming when we are sleeping. Or that parts of our body that has been paralyzed by injections and put to somewhat of a sleep still reacts to its surroundings.
It’s years ago that an article by a surgeon explained that the brain recognizes what happens during surgery. We might not feel pain and are asleep but the brain recognizes every cut and stitch and in some people this leaves PTSD and depression out of nowhere after very intense, traumatic surgery.
So this is no news to me.
I like to think of it like this… Our body, the “vehicle”, is asleep. The “I” in some instances as it seems is *not*… But we can’t remember these moments because we were unable to form proper memories during anesthesia. One has to be awake to do so. That is why we do not remember most of our dreams unless we are waking up very fast. And this is also why many people do not remember their NDEs but there are also other things at play such as the swelling of the brain due to resustication and medication. Just saying…
They act like they found the needle in the hay again. And every time people trying to speak for a soul find anything new it is downtalked by materialist media. But some materialist scientists saying “Wow, we aren’t dead when we are asleep? Coolio!” get handed a golden trophy. Aight.
PS: Sorry for no sources to my words (Surgeon, Hippocampus) It’s stuff I met along the way of personal research over years. I would not have thought I’d ever need to bookmark the links to these articles. I think I need to change my behaviour regarding this in the future.
A very intersting pos. The link makes for a good read too. Paul
Shold read a very intersting post. Not an interesting pros! Paul
Doh…….
https://www.iflscience.com/is-it-possible-to-see-yourself-die-a-woman-tried-hypnosis-to-recall-her-near-death-experience-what-she-saw-brought-doctors-to-tears-85007?fbclid=IwdGRjcAVJ_9ljbGNrBUn_1GV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YBc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEecOksUynWrEOgUoZY0zwIOyhdEkaWI1mx4Bb7mep8K-AHZBCAMmL1jEyBsGc_aem_wePNpAIvxOKa07Vag62c7A
Pretty amazing. It certainly supports the memory hypothesis.
I feel like I heard the premonition story before somewhere. Maybe it was in the self does not die.
The forgetfulness is a popular theory. I think Jane Holden spoke about hypnosis being used to bring back forgotten NDE memories. I think others, maybe Bryce Grayson, have mentioned that drugs/anesthesia may be suppressing the number of NDEs.
https://youtu.be/odrI_6JCZCc?is=mereQ5ddbNPWb_gv
Awesome
The video is about a near death experence with veridical perception
Yeah, it’s a good one.
Maybe a little off topic but a very intersting video.
Paul
https://www.facebook.com/reel/729351242947418
I hesitate to comment on quantum mechanics, because I feel I don’t have a strong grasp of it, but as far as I can tell biocentrism isn’t a respected theory by most people in the field and is viewed as pseudoscience.