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.