I’m very glad you did this for many reasons. The first that comes to mind is of course I can just tell people to watch you instead of using an hour or two to go trough more or less what you just did, as I have tried to do after diving into the research myself some years ago. You say more than once that this is a weird topic. It did not use to be so, a lot of the studies in the beginning of last century was about life after death, how to get to know it, what is consciousness etc. At the time it was not controversial that people had these experiences, even thought they were less frequent because of the advances in medicine that has happened since. What was very normal was people getting visited by a person in the moment they died, and that people were visited by dead relatives the weeks before their own death. But then positivism and materialism happened, and these phenomena were not longer talked about and if they were they were ridiculed or explained away, so they fell out of common knowledge. People still experienced the same, but now thought they were “the only one” and stopped telling about it or sharing it in our western culture. So, one of the reasons I am so glad you talk about it is that this is part of human experience, that many have been “gasligted” about for some generation. We have not talked true about this, and that has hurt many people who have these experiences. Also, experiences like this is a source of love, of trust of hope - we have been robbed of from that, and I think that has hurt us as individuals, but also as a community. We have been given a false impression on life, on what a human is, what life and death is. The materialistic world view does not serve us well, but it has been the ocean of ideas we have been swimming in, also as Christians. Getting rid of that opens up to a more true way of looking at life, and new possibilities to study and explore, both in science and in our personal lives. For the paradigm of materialism to end, we need to know how weak the theories behind it actually is, and your talk on this helps as it reaches a lot of people. Thank you!
There is a very definite and physical separation that occurs in OBEs. The accounts often site a buzzing sound, which perhaps might better be described as something like a pure energy; but that energy is oneself, and it separates from the body. This is difficult to convey, but it is what happens. Once out of the body, one can see and do things that obviously defy the known qualities of the physical world. These are very literal and specific events that go far beyond the body and in many cases are corroborated by other sources.
Great introductory video to this topic, but I think the next video in this "series" is the real meat and bones that we as Christians need to be tackling ... can't wait to see how you approach it.
Excellent discussion of a topic that I had simply avoided as behind approach. You proved that it is a topic that can be approached by Christians and which should not be written off, even if we cannot understand the cause.
Hey Jordan, Yes, please continue these sorts of topics. I enjoyed your breakdown. I'd like to understand more the scriptural basis of the soul and how to work through concepts that may not be found in the Old Testament but then are found in the New Testament that appear to be from a Greek philosphical Influence and related, how to have a sensible approach to using cultural background in exegesis (i.e. not reading too much or too little into a text from the cultural background)
Professionally, I've seen many dead people. There is something missing in a dead person when you see them even if they only died a moment before. Story...I was walking into a county building for a meeting. Many homeless encamp around this building. One of the homeless was sitting against a tree wearing sunglasses. I looked at him and thought to myself, "He's dead." After the meeting, I exited the building and saw the coroner's office picking him up.
"What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?" A lot, really. I like the notion common in several Church Fathers that as Yahweh prepared the Jews for the Messiah through Special, unfolding Revelation, the Book of Scripture... that He (in some sense) "inspired" the Greek thinkers using their first article gifts to observe the Book of Nature and thus come very close to the Hebrew notion of God (albeit in a Hidden God sense, but still). The assumption in this Patristic premise being that the Greek and Hebrew notions of God, soul, nature are relatively similar, and even compatible. A lot of the criticism of Hellenized Christianity ends up in the Barthian anti-Natural Theology camp, it seems to me.
Honestly, I understand that questions of "the brain" being a factor should be mentioned, BUT, there are so many instances where someone is "braindead" that the focus should be on these. Saves time.
th-cam.com/video/EWa-SzGsyC0/w-d-xo.html Well, he did a video about philosophy of mind, not about a proof of the existence of the soul, but is against physicalism
Great video, looking forward to next parts. The video about panpsychism would also be great. The point about book covers of books on NDEs is so on point :)
Here's perhaps a related question. I've gotten the impression from you that you regard the Platonic/Aristotelian model of the soul (Soul as Form of the body) as compatible with the Biblical model... perhaps I need to brush up on my Greek philosophy but is the notion of the form an actual thing (I hesitate to say 'substance', because that is it by definition), or is it more of an organizing principle/idea present elsewhere?
He has a video describing it here. th-cam.com/video/VmNHLlQzdCw/w-d-xo.html The form is real but whether it's a "thing" depends on what you mean by "thing." The classic example is a triangle. The form of the triangle doesn't make up any particular triangle, instead they're made up of wood, plastic, or paper etc. However, what makes them triangles is that they share in the nature, essence, or form of a triangle. We abstract from different triangles the form of triangurality, we can also abstract from just acts the form of justice. Same applies to us. Plato definitely thought these forms were real and taught they're located in another realm. Aristotle thought they existed in the objects themselves, many Christian platonist claimed they existed in the mind of God. All agree the forms were real.
@@JP-rf8rr Right, but are human forms individual or a collective participation in a singular form. Basically I'm asking what is the relationship between souls and personhood.
@@vngelicath1580 Aquinas himself might help here. This comes from question 76 from part 1 of the summa. The question is "It seems that the intellective principle is not multiplied as the bodies are multiplied, but that instead there is just a single intellect for all men (sit unus intellectus in omnibus hominibus)" Aquinas answers saying "In Physics 2 the Philosopher says that particular causes are related to particulars in the same way that universal causes are related to universals. But it is impossible for a soul that is one in species to belong to animals that are diverse in species. Therefore, it is impossible for an intellective soul that is one in number to belong to things that are numerically diverse." He goes on in further detail here: " It is altogether impossible for there to be a single intellect for all men. This is utterly obvious if, in keeping with Plato’s opinion, a man is the intellect itself. For it would follow that if there is just one intellect for Socrates and Plato, then Socrates and Plato are a single man and are distinct from one another only in what lies outside the essence of both. And in that case the distinction between Socrates and Plato will be no different from the distinction between a man wearing a tunic and the same man wearing a cape (distinctio non alia quam hominis tunicati et cappati)-which is completely absurd. It is likewise clear that this is impossible if, in keeping with Aristotle’s opinion, the intellect is thought of as a part, i.e., a power, of that soul which serves as the form of a man. For it is impossible that many numerically diverse things should have a single form, just as it is impossible that numerically diverse things should have a single esse. For the form is the source of esse (principium essendi). Similarly, it is clear that the claim in question is impossible regardless of how one thinks of the intellect’s union with this man and that man: (a) For instance, it is obvious that if they are a single principal agent and two instruments, then one can say that there is a single agent absolutely speaking but more than one action-just as, if a single man touches different things with his two hands, there will be one toucher and two touches. (b) Conversely, if they are a single instrument and two different principal agents, then there would be more than one agent but a single action-in the same way that if many men are dragging a boat with a single rope, there will be many draggers but only a single dragging. (c) On the other hand, if they are a single principal agent and a single instrument, then there will be one agent and one action-just as, when a blacksmith strikes with one hammer, there is one striker and one striking. But it is clear that however the intellect might be united to or connected with this man or that man, the intellect has preeminence over the other things that belong to a man. For instance, the sentient powers obey the intellect and serve it. Therefore, if one supposed that two men had more than one intellect but a single sensory power-for instance, if the two men had a single eye-then there would be more than one man seeing but just a single act of seeing (visio). But if there is a single intellect, then no matter how different the other powers used by the intellect as instruments are, Socrates and Plato could not in any way be called anything but a single knower (intelligens). And if we add that the very act of intellective understanding (ipsum intelligere), which is the intellect’s action, is not effected by any organ other than the intellect itself, it will follow further that there is both a single agent and a single action; that is, it will follow that all men are a single knower and that there is a single act of understanding (I mean with respect to the same intelligible object)." This is a lot to read, but I hope it answers your question. If you still want more information on classical understanding of the soul (Something I'm still trying to learn about myself) here are some resources. www.newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/Part%201/st1-ques75.pdf www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/Part%201/st1-ques76.pdf
Really enjoyed this one (not that I don't generally enjoy your videos) and am looking forward to part two. On an unrelated matter, where would be the best place to send you an email? The email address provided on the Just and Sinner website? I had a couple questions on ordination for pastors and deaconesses in the LCMS vs AALC church concerning any requirements or lack thereof on the question of creationism. Due to the level of intensity the subject can sometimes elicit, I thought it better to ask my questions via email than on a public TH-cam forum.
I would say that up until the MRI and other medical instruments were invented, researched, and broadly implemented, the entire field of psychology and the DSM were based on anecdotal experiences... just a lot of them. The ability to view brain activity provided more objective understanding, but psychological medicine is still largely based on patients self-reporting.
I look forward to your next video(s) on this. Are you going to interact with Seraphim Rose's view on toll houses? I've read that it, at least his take, is quite controversial in Eastern Orthodoxy.
Can dreams be some kind of evidence for the soul? Many individuals dream about individuals from the past and present without seeing their faces or anything physical. Can we apprehend the “soul” of the person in a way we can’t during consciousness?
Hey! I listened to this podcast on my way to work and it's very nice to hear a good and reasonable take from a Lutheran on NEDs. I wish I could say this to you in private, but I don't know how to reach you. Um, could you, if you'd be kind enough to those of us who have mild misophonia, not drink coffee like that? Thanks!:)
So where are your sources? Blind people being able to see or having accurate accounts is remarkable and it might even change my "naturalistic" perspective but I need to see where you are getting these claims.
I really liked Habermas on Christ's Resurrection because it reinvigorated the oldest apology. I really wish he hadn't gotten into near death. It discredited his better work.
I see some Hindus that had NDEs and they speak about see Hindu gods in theses experiences. I don't have a strong position in philosophy of mind in this moment, but I doubt NDE can be used to prove Christiany, maybe would be only a proof for body-soul dualism.
Exactly. I found NDE's 'don't work' in converting people to the Christian faith (which means they can NOT be of God). When Mohommatans etc make similar claims, NDE's don't convince anyone. This is why in debates, NDE's simply don't work. I do believe NDE's are definitely real experiences unlike anything else. NDE's work very well to sell people into Universalism, New Age, Deism, etc. etc.
They do provide good evidence for the reality of the soul, as long as you use good criterion on which experiences are evidentially valuable. One aspect is the person had to have seen something going on in the real world that can be verified as having happened, but impossible for them to have witnessed (since they would have been physically dead). One account I heard of was a man who died in the hospital and saw his body below him where the doctor removed the glasses from his face and placed it in a drawer. He also went through the wall to the nextdoor room and saw a man having his leg amputated. When he came back, he told the doctor what he had seen, and asked for his glasses back from the drawer the doctor had put it in. The doctor also affirmed that there had indeed been a leg amputation happening nextdoor. It would be interesting to compare christian vs other religious NDEs using this criteria. I can think of one famous explicitly Christian NDE that works in this way. I wonder if more research could be done to compare them.
@@AlphaOmega888 That is the cognitive bias resulting in their preexisting beliefs before the alleged NDE. It's quite obvious and I am glad you pointed this out. And when confronted with opposing logic and facts regarding this or their claim, results in their corresponding cognitive dissonance. It's a clinically pathological condition and part of modern psychology. I just commented on this video regarding this, and the logical analysis of a NDE as if we took a claim of NDE to a court of law and put it on trial. I think based on what you said here you might find it provocative. Look at the other comments here and you should see it.
@@emmagrace6396 Did you actually confirm the testimony of the doctor involved? And the length of time the patient was said to be dead? That matters of course, but worse that testimony rather would confirm the existence of ghosts, doomed spirits who must haunt places and watch the living go on as they exist in a lonely, disembodied state! I don't know about you, but the idea of haunting a hospital, floating through walls forever does not sound good!
@@michaelhoward3048 I heard the story from a video on the argument for the soul by Inspiring Philosophy. He used a real scientific study of the occurrence as part of his evidence. Here's a link to the video: th-cam.com/video/nnTVPCwPjhI/w-d-xo.html Haven't watched it in a while but I remember that after a while he saw a bright light and wanted to go to it, but was sent back to his body. Presumably his soul would have passed into the next world at that point if it hadn't been for his being sent back, so he wouldn't have drifted around the hospital for all eternity.
(Yes this is a very long comment and may overwhelm the non-reader who prefers only TH-cam videos, but for those accustomed to reading you might find this interesting and informative. It is an examination of a near-death experience as if it were a case in a court of law and help some understand the reasoning behind the skepticism faced when making such NDE claims. I wrote it. It's mine and I would be happy to argue any refutations to it. It is opinion, not fact, and only follows the Laws of Logic as a guide, not any preexisting belief or political agenda.) Suppose we took this evidence of a near death experience to court and presented legal arguments based on the testimony of the witness. The witness being the one who claimed to have the experience, who in our scenario would be the defendant who is defending their claim. Now let's pretend that I am the prosecuting attorney for the State and give my opening statement to the court before proceeding with the trial. This is NOT a refutation of the witness' claim, but establishing the expectations of the defense to present their case according to the law. In this case, the law being the Laws of Logic since no criminal laws obviously apply here. But some framework must be established to test the validity of their testimony against a reasonable precedence. So, here is a proposed opening statement by the prosecution presented before the judge who, in this case, the judge is our own reason: Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury. Your Honor. The State now wishes to proceed with our opening statement in the case of "Our Reason" vs "NDE and the Afterlife" What is Death? What is Life? Can we be both alive and dead at the same time? Can we coexist with death? And let's be clear the difference between being alive and being dead. Being alive we have thought, memories, emotions, sensation, awareness, and a body with senses in which we can experience all these elements of life. Of being alive. So is there any single one of these aspects of being alive which the Law of Contradiction does not apply, thus breaking the law itself? If the law still holds, then no aspect of life can be a part of death. And death is the absence of life by definition. And so if we attempt an alternate definition of death to escape the Law of Contradiction regarding our coexistence with it, what is the epistemic discernment we must use to do so? Empirical or Theoretical deliberation? Does it require presuppositions that are derived by means outside the definition of death itself? And furthermore, if we still hold true the Law of Contradiction, then we cannot also change the definition of death, and that it is the absence of life and all the aspects we described life such as thought, memories, emotions, sensation, awareness, without breaking another law called The Law of Identity. The Law of Identity states that a thing is identical to itself and is defined as a term and not a proposition. And The Law of Identity would conclude that death is the opposite of life and cannot contain any property that is used to define life itself. Therefore, based upon the logical parameters presented so far, according to the Law of Contradiction and the Law of Identity, there can be no afterlife. No continuation of any aspect of life, as defined, which would contradict the Law of Identity or The Law of Contradiction. We therefore, upon death, cannot expect to have thinking and deliberation, the memory of who we were or the experiences during our lives, any emotions such as love, anger, happiness or sadness, any sensation of sights, sounds, tastes, smells or touch, and any awareness of our surroundings or the conditions we would be in, pleasurable or painful. A dreamless sleep as Socrates contemplated while awaiting his execution. An afterlife identical to the beforelife, at the same place we were during the Civil War or when the Pyramids were built. Any attempts to redefine either the meaning of life or death using presuppositions, such as "eternal life" or "immortality", are illogical and contradict both the Law of Contradiction and The Law of Identity. And if a proposition is derived through the use of illogical presuppositions, then it's conclusions can also be considered illogical and therefore irrational given the deliberate use of the illogical premise. Consider Aristotle on this who established the Laws of Logic we are using in our deliberations: "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal." If all A are B, and all C are A, then all C are B. For us to arrive at a truthful conclusion then the premises must be true. Further appeals to faith do not override a deliberate misuse of logic and if it persists then it must be concluded that the proposition is irrational and therefore false. A false pretense predicated on the assumption of illogical conclusions derived through illogical means. But the philosopher who did not contradict himself regarding his proposition of death is Epicurus who said: "When we are death is not and when death comes we are not" and he used proper discernment based on the Law of Contradiction and the Law of Identity. And when Paul approached the Epicureans, followers and students of Epicurus, and the Stoics, followers and students of Zeno, in Acts 17:18 of the New Testament at the Agora in Athens, the philosophers called him a babbler, using the same false pretenses explained previously, and sent him on his way. For he spoke of dead people coming to life again and even then, without evidence, that requires the suspension of our reason and disregarding known observations of death to accept, prompting the Epicureans and Stoics rejection of Paul's claims of resurrection as well as the "strange god" he presented. But of course, philosophers have more strict epistemic discernment! And upon further examination of such claims within scripture, there are inconsistencies in those claims which provide further evidence of their erroneous nature. I am referring to Matt. 27:52-53 which states "The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many." Here we see a claim of resurrection involving "many bodies" which then rose and "appeared to many". Given the significance of even the single resurrection of Jesus which essentially the entire religion is based, we find it impossible for the claim of many resurrections of the saints, who appeared to many, to be omitted or ignored in the other three gospels which are also claimed to be testimonies to the same events that would have been occurring during the reported rising of the saints. Many bodies rising is more significant than one and we feel such a claim should not have gone unnoticed by the other three gospels of Mark, Luke and John. And furthermore provides reasonable doubt and grounds for skepticism of such general claims of resurrection having taken place at all. So, in conclusion, the State believes it has strong evidence to have reasonable doubt and skepticism, and therefore dismissal, of claims of an afterlife experience according to the Laws of Logic and lack of Empirical evidence. We feel the evidence of such experiences fail to meet either the logical or empirical requirements to consider such evidence as valid, nor meets the demands necessary to establish such evidence as fact. In addition, we feel there is sufficient medical evidence available which provides reasonable doubt to the claim, and the acceptance of claims of NDE or the Afterlife, including contact with deceased relatives or deities, therefore must be considered subjective testimony and biased considering any attempted presuppositions by the defense regarding an established belief (i.e religious) in such claims, and the claims of subsequent believers, who may be operating under the limitations of cognitive bias compelled by, but not limited to, the internalized fear of death and/or the hope of the continuation of themselves beyond the extinction of the body, the brain and the consciousness to allow the capacity to reunite with beloved family members and their own respective deities. That indeed these psychological compulsions are producing the emotional barriers that contribute to the cognitive bias and their inability to employ logic for the purposes of critical thinking and discernment. Therefore, these testimonies of NDE's are accepted as the necessary evidence to confirm their preexisting beliefs and demonstrate the cognitive bias in effect, and when confronted with opposing facts and logical refutations to these NDE testimonies the resulting cognitive dissonance produces the adverse effects inherent in it's condition, such as discomfort, anger, stress, worry, and general feelings of negativity. In addition, as a result of their preexisting beliefs resulting in cognitive bias it may be preventing the objective assessment of the evidence limiting them to their own subjectivity regarding the validity of this, or any other NDE testimony, as well as contributing to the alleged NDE claimed by the defendant themselves through their own subconscious desires and expectations of the existence of an afterlife during their experience. The State Rests, Your Honor
Nintendo characters? Santa Clause? Yamatoots? Yamraj? For those who want to know the full story.......... THE NDE STUDIES.....(LA Times excerpts) Researchers estimate that around 17% of people have an NDE. That means about 80% don't. Scratch beneath those alleged flat EKG lines and the stories are a veritable Twilight Zone of inconsistencies. Some near-death voyagers claim to have met God - BUT A FEW SAW ELVIS PRESLEY OR GROUCHO MARX, researchers say. Others get to heaven not through the famous "tunnel", but ABOARD GHOSTLY TAXI CABS, FERRIES THAT CROSS THE RIVER STYX, OR SPANGLED COWS. Even some children - often touted as the best source of unbiased information - sometimes return from "death" CLAIMING THEY WERE GREETED IN THE OTHER WORLD by STILL LIVING TEACHERS, and NINTENDO CHARACTERS, and COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS. If encounters with conscious plants, talking insects, roosters, and turtles, doesn’t give you pause about NDEs, perhaps NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WILL. Melvin Morse reports that a 10-year-old boy had an NDE where he ENCOUNTERED A VIDEO-GAMING WIZARD who loved Nintendo. Karl Jansen similarly reports finding childhood NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH VIDEO GAME AND COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS. In a collection of pediatric NDEs published in 1990, Serdahely even found a case where A GIRL ENCOUNTERED A FAVORITE TOY DURING HER NDE - AN OLD STUFFED ANIMAL. They differ between people and cultures. Instead of a tunnel and angels, EAST INDIANS MAY DESCRIBE THE RIVER GANGES AND A PARTICULAR GURU. HINDUS WHO BELIEVE IN YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of death, EXPERIENCED MEETING HIM. A Hindu girl "died" AND WENT TO HEAVEN ON A COW. Would that mean western people will be riding cows to heaven? Jews who don't believe in Jesus or "hell", experienced meeting God as described in the Old Testament, while messianic Jews experienced God as Jesus. Any reports of Christians meeting Muhammad, or Muslims meeting the Virgin Mary, or Jews meeting Guru Nanak, if they exist, have not been publicized. Dr. Richard Eby had an NDE and allegedly Jesus told him he had to back, and that he (Jesus) would be returning (2nd coming) before he died permanently. BUT DR. RICHARD EBY HAS NOW DIED AND JESUS HAS NOT RETURNED. A few hospitals have placed signs in their cardiac units - with nonsensical messages visible only from above - BUT SO FAR NOBODY HAS RETURNED FROM DEATH CLAIMING TO HAVE FLOATED UP AND SEEN ONE. In one study carried out, the experiences of 16 Asian Indians were compared with those of Americans, and IT WAS FOUND THAT THE INDIANS HAD ENCOUNTERED YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of the dead, WHILE THE AMERICANS HAD NOT. You would expect that if any one particular religious account of the afterlife was true, NDEs would be pretty much the same. BUT THESE ACCOUNTS ARE SO VARIED AND ARE ARE ALL BASED ON CULTURAL EXPOSURE. IN INDIA, PEOPLE SEE HINDU GODS; IN SAUDI ARABIA ITS ALLAH, MOHAMED, AND A BUNCH OF VIRGINS. The kid from the book/movie Heaven Is For Real, saw a Jesus with sea-green blue eyes ON A RAINBOW COLORED HORSE, GOD WITH HUGE WINGS, YELLOW HAIR AND BLUE EYES; and ONE LITTLE GIRL WENT TO HEAVEN AND WAS GREETED BY A PORTLY MAN WITH A WHITE BEARD AND RED CAP, aka SANTA CLAUSE. The Mapuche people of South America and residents of Hawaii are more likely to SEE LANDSCAPES AND VOLCANOES, whereas NDEs in Thailand rarely involve landmarks, tunnels, or light. For Tibetans, light features more heavily AS DO ILLUSIONS OF REINCARNATION. Europeans and North Americans often visualize beautiful gardens; intriguingly the Kalai of Melanesia are more inclined to SEE AN INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD OF FACTORIES. An NDEr's subjective recollections can be attributed to many factors: THE NDEr's PSYCHOLOGY, PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, BACKGROUND, ETC., NOT JUST CULTURE. The terrain of Heaven also varies wildly - from gardens, forests, and CATTLE FILLED PASTURES in some accounts, to clouds, COMPUTER ROOMS OR CASTLES, in others. A TEXAN SAW BARBED WIRE FENCES IN THE AFTERLIFE. Micronesians describe LARGE NOISY CITIES WITH CARS AND SKYSCRAPERS. Drug addicts, alcoholics, felons (murder), suicides, hedonists, abusers, mean people, and gay people, have all claimed to encounter heaven. Strangely, people have claimed to enter some "hell" FOR THE SAME REASONS. EVEN THE INFAMOUS ADOLF HITLER HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN HEAVEN. Again, strangely, he's also been seen in some "hell". Contradictions abound. There are reports of bad NDE trips involving TORTURES BY ELVES, GIANTS, MONSTERS, etc. Some parapsychologists take these as evidence of the mythical places of various religions. But, IF SO, THEN WHAT IS ONE TO CONCLUDE FROM THE FACT THAT OVER 80% OF PEOPLE NEAR DEATH DO NOT EXPERIENCE ANYTHING, neither the heavenly or the diabolical? This is a wonder. Is the hereafter actually mining and refining raw materials needed to build castles, cars, barbed wire fences, computers, and skyscrapers? From where do they get this material and the tools? Not to mention the raw materials and tools needed to construct an ever increasing number of those cages and cubes in the Christian hell, as a few claim. Who builds those cages? And which of the variety of "hells" do you actually go to? Christian? Buddhist? Spiritualist? Hindu? Muslim? Some other one? The answer seems to be whichever one the experiencer has been exposed to, as Thai NDErs regularly claim to encounter LORD YAMA AND YAMATOOTS, COMPLETE WITH TALKING DECEASED ROOSTERS, and being sentenced to Buddhist "hell" for butchering and eating chicken, then reincarnated as birds. DOES THAT MEAN WESTERNERS WILL UNKNOWINGLY BE HEADING TO BUDDHIST "HELL" FOR EATING CHICKEN? Thai accounts state that butchers become lumps of meat in Buddhist "hell", so what then awaits Western slaughterhouse workers? Even in her rather homogeneous Western European clientele, Kubler-Ross could see the effects of early enculturation: " I NEVER ENCOUNTERED A PROTESTANT CHILD WHO SAW THE VIRGIN MARY IN HIS LAST MINUTES, YET SHE WAS PERCEIVED BY MANY CATHOLIC CHILDREN." But there also are some hard-to-explain differences, Melvin Morse says. Whereas American near-death survivors are typically sent back by God because “it’s not your time yet,” INDIA'S AFTERLIFE VISITORS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE TOLD THERE WAS A “CLERICAL ERROR.” Even more curious: SOMETIMES THE BEING OF LIGHT IS ELVIS PRESLEY. Moody has chronicled at least two such sightings. A PERSON MAY APPEAR DEAD TO OUR SENSES OR OUR SCIENTIFIC EQUIPMENT, BUT STILL BE PERCEIVING. In fact, we now have evidence that patients who appear brain dead, may in fact be capable of conscious thought. In 2006, scientists in the UK and Belgium did an fMRI on a woman in a vegetative state and FOUND THAT PARTS OF HER BRAIN SHOWED ACTIVITY WHEN SHE WAS SPOKEN TO, AND ASKED TO THINK ABOUT THINGS LIKE PLAYING TENNIS. Yet the evidence for near-death paranormal powers remains shaky at best. TWO STUDIES HAVE FOUND THAT PATIENTS’ “OUT OF BODY” ACCOUNTS OF WHAT HAPPENED IN THE OPERATING ROOM WERE WRONG. So were the 1988 Armageddon forecasts hyped by Ring and others.
Nintendo characters? Santa Clause? Yamatoots? Yamraj? For those who want to know the full story.......... THE NDE STUDIES.....(LA Times excerpts) Researchers estimate that around 17% of people have an NDE. That means about 80% don't. Scratch beneath those alleged flat EKG lines and the stories are a veritable Twilight Zone of inconsistencies. Some near-death voyagers claim to have met God - BUT A FEW SAW ELVIS PRESLEY OR GROUCHO MARX, researchers say. Others get to heaven not through the famous "tunnel", but ABOARD GHOSTLY TAXI CABS, FERRIES THAT CROSS THE RIVER STYX, OR SPANGLED COWS. Even some children - often touted as the best source of unbiased information - sometimes return from "death" CLAIMING THEY WERE GREETED IN THE OTHER WORLD by STILL LIVING TEACHERS, and NINTENDO CHARACTERS, and COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS. If encounters with conscious plants, talking insects, roosters, and turtles, doesn’t give you pause about NDEs, perhaps NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WILL. Melvin Morse reports that a 10-year-old boy had an NDE where he ENCOUNTERED A VIDEO-GAMING WIZARD who loved Nintendo. Karl Jansen similarly reports finding childhood NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH VIDEO GAME AND COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS. In a collection of pediatric NDEs published in 1990, Serdahely even found a case where A GIRL ENCOUNTERED A FAVORITE TOY DURING HER NDE - AN OLD STUFFED ANIMAL. They differ between people and cultures. Instead of a tunnel and angels, EAST INDIANS MAY DESCRIBE THE RIVER GANGES AND A PARTICULAR GURU. HINDUS WHO BELIEVE IN YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of death, EXPERIENCED MEETING HIM. A Hindu girl "died" AND WENT TO HEAVEN ON A COW. Would that mean western people will be riding cows to heaven? Jews who don't believe in Jesus or "hell", experienced meeting God as described in the Old Testament, while messianic Jews experienced God as Jesus. Any reports of Christians meeting Muhammad, or Muslims meeting the Virgin Mary, or Jews meeting Guru Nanak, if they exist, have not been publicized. Dr. Richard Eby had an NDE and allegedly Jesus told him he had to back, and that he (Jesus) would be returning (2nd coming) before he died permanently. BUT DR. RICHARD EBY HAS NOW DIED AND JESUS HAS NOT RETURNED. A few hospitals have placed signs in their cardiac units - with nonsensical messages visible only from above - BUT SO FAR NOBODY HAS RETURNED FROM DEATH CLAIMING TO HAVE FLOATED UP AND SEEN ONE. In one study carried out, the experiences of 16 Asian Indians were compared with those of Americans, and IT WAS FOUND THAT THE INDIANS HAD ENCOUNTERED YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of the dead, WHILE THE AMERICANS HAD NOT. You would expect that if any one particular religious account of the afterlife was true, NDEs would be pretty much the same. BUT THESE ACCOUNTS ARE SO VARIED AND ARE ARE ALL BASED ON CULTURAL EXPOSURE. IN INDIA, PEOPLE SEE HINDU GODS; IN SAUDI ARABIA ITS ALLAH, MOHAMED, AND A BUNCH OF VIRGINS. The kid from the book/movie Heaven Is For Real, saw a Jesus with sea-green blue eyes ON A RAINBOW COLORED HORSE, GOD WITH HUGE WINGS, YELLOW HAIR AND BLUE EYES; and ONE LITTLE GIRL WENT TO HEAVEN AND WAS GREETED BY A PORTLY MAN WITH A WHITE BEARD AND RED CAP, aka SANTA CLAUSE. The Mapuche people of South America and residents of Hawaii are more likely to SEE LANDSCAPES AND VOLCANOES, whereas NDEs in Thailand rarely involve landmarks, tunnels, or light. For Tibetans, light features more heavily AS DO ILLUSIONS OF REINCARNATION. Europeans and North Americans often visualize beautiful gardens; intriguingly the Kalai of Melanesia are more inclined to SEE AN INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD OF FACTORIES. An NDEr's subjective recollections can be attributed to many factors: THE NDEr's PSYCHOLOGY, PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, BACKGROUND, ETC., NOT JUST CULTURE. The terrain of Heaven also varies wildly - from gardens, forests, and CATTLE FILLED PASTURES in some accounts, to clouds, COMPUTER ROOMS OR CASTLES, in others. A TEXAN SAW BARBED WIRE FENCES IN THE AFTERLIFE. Micronesians describe LARGE NOISY CITIES WITH CARS AND SKYSCRAPERS. Drug addicts, alcoholics, felons (murder), suicides, hedonists, abusers, mean people, and gay people, have all claimed to encounter heaven. Strangely, people have claimed to enter some "hell" FOR THE SAME REASONS. EVEN THE INFAMOUS ADOLF HITLER HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN HEAVEN. Again, strangely, he's also been seen in some "hell". Contradictions abound. There are reports of bad NDE trips involving TORTURES BY ELVES, GIANTS, MONSTERS, etc. Some parapsychologists take these as evidence of the mythical places of various religions. But, IF SO, THEN WHAT IS ONE TO CONCLUDE FROM THE FACT THAT OVER 80% OF PEOPLE NEAR DEATH DO NOT EXPERIENCE ANYTHING, neither the heavenly or the diabolical? This is a wonder. Is the hereafter actually mining and refining raw materials needed to build castles, cars, barbed wire fences, computers, and skyscrapers? From where do they get this material and the tools? Not to mention the raw materials and tools needed to construct an ever increasing number of those cages and cubes in the Christian hell, as a few claim. Who builds those cages? And which of the variety of "hells" do you actually go to? Christian? Buddhist? Spiritualist? Hindu? Muslim? Some other one? The answer seems to be whichever one the experiencer has been exposed to, as Thai NDErs regularly claim to encounter LORD YAMA AND YAMATOOTS, COMPLETE WITH TALKING DECEASED ROOSTERS, and being sentenced to Buddhist "hell" for butchering and eating chicken, then reincarnated as birds. DOES THAT MEAN WESTERNERS WILL UNKNOWINGLY BE HEADING TO BUDDHIST "HELL" FOR EATING CHICKEN? Thai accounts state that butchers become lumps of meat in Buddhist "hell", so what then awaits Western slaughterhouse workers? Even in her rather homogeneous Western European clientele, Kubler-Ross could see the effects of early enculturation: " I NEVER ENCOUNTERED A PROTESTANT CHILD WHO SAW THE VIRGIN MARY IN HIS LAST MINUTES, YET SHE WAS PERCEIVED BY MANY CATHOLIC CHILDREN."
NDEs certainly destroys materialism. There are now hundreds of documented experiences and a key Christian figure researching this is Dr Gary Habbermas.
Nintendo characters? Santa Clause? Yamatoots? Yamraj? For those who want to know the full story.......... THE NDE STUDIES.....(LA Times excerpts) Researchers estimate that around 17% of people have an NDE. That means about 80% don't. Scratch beneath those alleged flat EKG lines and the stories are a veritable Twilight Zone of inconsistencies. Some near-death voyagers claim to have met God - BUT A FEW SAW ELVIS PRESLEY OR GROUCHO MARX, researchers say. Others get to heaven not through the famous "tunnel", but ABOARD GHOSTLY TAXI CABS, FERRIES THAT CROSS THE RIVER STYX, OR SPANGLED COWS. Even some children - often touted as the best source of unbiased information - sometimes return from "death" CLAIMING THEY WERE GREETED IN THE OTHER WORLD by STILL LIVING TEACHERS, and NINTENDO CHARACTERS, and COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS. If encounters with conscious plants, talking insects, roosters, and turtles, doesn’t give you pause about NDEs, perhaps NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WILL. Melvin Morse reports that a 10-year-old boy had an NDE where he ENCOUNTERED A VIDEO-GAMING WIZARD who loved Nintendo. Karl Jansen similarly reports finding childhood NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH VIDEO GAME AND COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS. In a collection of pediatric NDEs published in 1990, Serdahely even found a case where A GIRL ENCOUNTERED A FAVORITE TOY DURING HER NDE - AN OLD STUFFED ANIMAL. They differ between people and cultures. Instead of a tunnel and angels, EAST INDIANS MAY DESCRIBE THE RIVER GANGES AND A PARTICULAR GURU. HINDUS WHO BELIEVE IN YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of death, EXPERIENCED MEETING HIM. A Hindu girl "died" AND WENT TO HEAVEN ON A COW. Would that mean western people will be riding cows to heaven? Jews who don't believe in Jesus or "hell", experienced meeting God as described in the Old Testament, while messianic Jews experienced God as Jesus. Any reports of Christians meeting Muhammad, or Muslims meeting the Virgin Mary, or Jews meeting Guru Nanak, if they exist, have not been publicized. Dr. Richard Eby had an NDE and allegedly Jesus told him he had to back, and that he (Jesus) would be returning (2nd coming) before he died permanently. BUT DR. RICHARD EBY HAS NOW DIED AND JESUS HAS NOT RETURNED. A few hospitals have placed signs in their cardiac units - with nonsensical messages visible only from above - BUT SO FAR NOBODY HAS RETURNED FROM DEATH CLAIMING TO HAVE FLOATED UP AND SEEN ONE. In one study carried out, the experiences of 16 Asian Indians were compared with those of Americans, and IT WAS FOUND THAT THE INDIANS HAD ENCOUNTERED YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of the dead, WHILE THE AMERICANS HAD NOT. You would expect that if any one particular religious account of the afterlife was true, NDEs would be pretty much the same. BUT THESE ACCOUNTS ARE SO VARIED AND ARE ARE ALL BASED ON CULTURAL EXPOSURE. IN INDIA, PEOPLE SEE HINDU GODS; IN SAUDI ARABIA ITS ALLAH, MOHAMED, AND A BUNCH OF VIRGINS. The kid from the book/movie Heaven Is For Real, saw a Jesus with sea-green blue eyes ON A RAINBOW COLORED HORSE, GOD WITH HUGE WINGS, YELLOW HAIR AND BLUE EYES; and ONE LITTLE GIRL WENT TO HEAVEN AND WAS GREETED BY A PORTLY MAN WITH A WHITE BEARD AND RED CAP, aka SANTA CLAUSE. The Mapuche people of South America and residents of Hawaii are more likely to SEE LANDSCAPES AND VOLCANOES, whereas NDEs in Thailand rarely involve landmarks, tunnels, or light. For Tibetans, light features more heavily AS DO ILLUSIONS OF REINCARNATION. Europeans and North Americans often visualize beautiful gardens; intriguingly the Kalai of Melanesia are more inclined to SEE AN INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD OF FACTORIES. An NDEr's subjective recollections can be attributed to many factors: THE NDEr's PSYCHOLOGY, PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, BACKGROUND, ETC., NOT JUST CULTURE. The terrain of Heaven also varies wildly - from gardens, forests, and CATTLE FILLED PASTURES in some accounts, to clouds, COMPUTER ROOMS OR CASTLES, in others. A TEXAN SAW BARBED WIRE FENCES IN THE AFTERLIFE. Micronesians describe LARGE NOISY CITIES WITH CARS AND SKYSCRAPERS. Drug addicts, alcoholics, felons (murder), suicides, hedonists, abusers, mean people, and gay people, have all claimed to encounter heaven. Strangely, people have claimed to enter some "hell" FOR THE SAME REASONS. EVEN THE INFAMOUS ADOLF HITLER HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN HEAVEN. Again, strangely, he's also been seen in some "hell". Contradictions abound. There are reports of bad NDE trips involving TORTURES BY ELVES, GIANTS, MONSTERS, etc. Some parapsychologists take these as evidence of the mythical places of various religions. But, IF SO, THEN WHAT IS ONE TO CONCLUDE FROM THE FACT THAT OVER 80% OF PEOPLE NEAR DEATH DO NOT EXPERIENCE ANYTHING, neither the heavenly or the diabolical? This is a wonder. Is the hereafter actually mining and refining raw materials needed to build castles, cars, barbed wire fences, computers, and skyscrapers? From where do they get this material and the tools? Not to mention the raw materials and tools needed to construct an ever increasing number of those cages and cubes in the Christian hell, as a few claim. Who builds those cages? And which of the variety of "hells" do you actually go to? Christian? Buddhist? Spiritualist? Hindu? Muslim? Some other one? The answer seems to be whichever one the experiencer has been exposed to, as Thai NDErs regularly claim to encounter LORD YAMA AND YAMATOOTS, COMPLETE WITH TALKING DECEASED ROOSTERS, and being sentenced to Buddhist "hell" for butchering and eating chicken, then reincarnated as birds. DOES THAT MEAN WESTERNERS WILL UNKNOWINGLY BE HEADING TO BUDDHIST "HELL" FOR EATING CHICKEN? Thai accounts state that butchers become lumps of meat in Buddhist "hell", so what then awaits Western slaughterhouse workers? Even in her rather homogeneous Western European clientele, Kubler-Ross could see the effects of early enculturation: " I NEVER ENCOUNTERED A PROTESTANT CHILD WHO SAW THE VIRGIN MARY IN HIS LAST MINUTES, YET SHE WAS PERCEIVED BY MANY CATHOLIC CHILDREN."
In many NDE's, people describe what they perceived as Jesus. He often is seen with KEYS. But be careful! -Rev 1:17-18: I am [Jesus in heaven]..I HOLD the KEYS OF HELL and KEYS OF DEATH" -The keys of Heaven were given on to Peter on earth Mat 16:19 - this is why: -MARTIN LUTHER: “It is as if He [Jesus] were saying..They are INDEED the KEYS of HEAVEN, but they are NOT FOUND in Heaven. I left them ON EARTH” -(Martin Luther, The Keys) -So what keys are people seeing in NDE's?: -Since they cannot be invented keys, or fraudulent keys as shown below. It must follow that the keys seen in NDE's are probably a clear sign to make you run away quick! -MARTIN LUTHER: “'So we stand here..staring up to heaven and yet we INVENT OTHER KEYS .. It is as if He [Jesus] were saying: WHY are you staring heavenward IN SEARCH of THE KEYS? Do you NOT UNDERSTAND I GAVE THEM TO PETER?" -(Martin Luther, The Keys). -"Mormon President Kimball turned to the STATUE OF PETER and POINTED to the LARGE SET OF KEYS in Peter’s right hand, he proclaimed: ‘The keys of priesthood authority which PETER HELD as President of the Church *I NOW HOLD* AS PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH in this dispensation.’ - ldsscriptureteachings -"In 1836, MOSES, ELIAS and ELIJAH appeared to JOSEPH SMITH and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple to RESTORE KEYS” -
Argument for fun sake: what if carma/reincarnation/sansara are actually true, and the very purpose of the Christ is to abolish it? I wonder if it would actually make sense to explain the Gospel to Hindu in this way?
Well, even in Hinduism the goal is not to reincarnate or be reincarnated but to escape this realm and be united with God. So they have similar ideas but they are not explicitly explained in Christian terms but have different names for it
We NEED an apologetic for the existence of the soul!! Where can I find your past podcast?
I would also like to know this kyle
I’m very glad you did this for many reasons.
The first that comes to mind is of course I can just tell people to watch you instead of using an hour or two to go trough more or less what you just did, as I have tried to do after diving into the research myself some years ago.
You say more than once that this is a weird topic. It did not use to be so, a lot of the studies in the beginning of last century was about life after death, how to get to know it, what is consciousness etc. At the time it was not controversial that people had these experiences, even thought they were less frequent because of the advances in medicine that has happened since. What was very normal was people getting visited by a person in the moment they died, and that people were visited by dead relatives the weeks before their own death. But then positivism and materialism happened, and these phenomena were not longer talked about and if they were they were ridiculed or explained away, so they fell out of common knowledge. People still experienced the same, but now thought they were “the only one” and stopped telling about it or sharing it in our western culture.
So, one of the reasons I am so glad you talk about it is that this is part of human experience, that many have been “gasligted” about for some generation. We have not talked true about this, and that has hurt many people who have these experiences. Also, experiences like this is a source of love, of trust of hope - we have been robbed of from that, and I think that has hurt us as individuals, but also as a community. We have been given a false impression on life, on what a human is, what life and death is. The materialistic world view does not serve us well, but it has been the ocean of ideas we have been swimming in, also as Christians. Getting rid of that opens up to a more true way of looking at life, and new possibilities to study and explore, both in science and in our personal lives.
For the paradigm of materialism to end, we need to know how weak the theories behind it actually is, and your talk on this helps as it reaches a lot of people. Thank you!
Thank you for the hard work and preperation for this episode! You're a big inspiration. I love your philosophy episodes!!
I’ll be very interested to hear more about your critique of cartesian dualism:)
I second that!
Look up Ed Feser to get the critique
There is a very definite and physical separation that occurs in OBEs. The accounts often site a buzzing sound, which perhaps might better be described as something like a pure energy; but that energy is oneself, and it separates from the body. This is difficult to convey, but it is what happens. Once out of the body, one can see and do things that obviously defy the known qualities of the physical world. These are very literal and specific events that go far beyond the body and in many cases are corroborated by other sources.
Great introductory video to this topic, but I think the next video in this "series" is the real meat and bones that we as Christians need to be tackling ... can't wait to see how you approach it.
This is probably one of the coolest and broadest appealing episodes you've done! I'd love to hear more on this subject.
Excellent discussion of a topic that I had simply avoided as behind approach. You proved that it is a topic that can be approached by Christians and which should not be written off, even if we cannot understand the cause.
Hey Jordan, Yes, please continue these sorts of topics. I enjoyed your breakdown. I'd like to understand more the scriptural basis of the soul and how to work through concepts that may not be found in the Old Testament but then are found in the New Testament that appear to be from a Greek philosphical Influence and related, how to have a sensible approach to using cultural background in exegesis (i.e. not reading too much or too little into a text from the cultural background)
Great video, I‘m looking forward to the next part and definately think you should do this kind of stuff more often!
Professionally, I've seen many dead people. There is something missing in a dead person when you see them even if they only died a moment before. Story...I was walking into a county building for a meeting. Many homeless encamp around this building. One of the homeless was sitting against a tree wearing sunglasses. I looked at him and thought to myself, "He's dead." After the meeting, I exited the building and saw the coroner's office picking him up.
Excellent. Apologetics Value...Very important discussion.
"What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?"
A lot, really. I like the notion common in several Church Fathers that as Yahweh prepared the Jews for the Messiah through Special, unfolding Revelation, the Book of Scripture... that He (in some sense) "inspired" the Greek thinkers using their first article gifts to observe the Book of Nature and thus come very close to the Hebrew notion of God (albeit in a Hidden God sense, but still).
The assumption in this Patristic premise being that the Greek and Hebrew notions of God, soul, nature are relatively similar, and even compatible. A lot of the criticism of Hellenized Christianity ends up in the Barthian anti-Natural Theology camp, it seems to me.
Fascinating topic. I personally know two people who claimed to have a near death experience.
Nice job in covering it.
@DrJordanBCooper When you say substance dualism, do you mean to exclude Aristotelian hylomorphism?
Woohoo a new video! Thank you Dr. Cooper :)
Honestly, I understand that questions of "the brain" being a factor should be mentioned, BUT, there are so many instances where someone is "braindead" that the focus should be on these. Saves time.
I’d personally enjoy hearing the philosophical evidence for the existence of the soul.
th-cam.com/video/EWa-SzGsyC0/w-d-xo.html
Well, he did a video about philosophy of mind, not about a proof of the existence of the soul, but is against physicalism
Read the Phaedo by Plato. Still quite compelling, after 2300+ years.
@@renep.1435 I love this book
Great video, looking forward to next parts. The video about panpsychism would also be great. The point about book covers of books on NDEs is so on point :)
Here's perhaps a related question.
I've gotten the impression from you that you regard the Platonic/Aristotelian model of the soul (Soul as Form of the body) as compatible with the Biblical model... perhaps I need to brush up on my Greek philosophy but is the notion of the form an actual thing (I hesitate to say 'substance', because that is it by definition), or is it more of an organizing principle/idea present elsewhere?
He has a video describing it here.
th-cam.com/video/VmNHLlQzdCw/w-d-xo.html
The form is real but whether it's a "thing" depends on what you mean by "thing." The classic example is a triangle. The form of the triangle doesn't make up any particular triangle, instead they're made up of wood, plastic, or paper etc. However, what makes them triangles is that they share in the nature, essence, or form of a triangle. We abstract from different triangles the form of triangurality, we can also abstract from just acts the form of justice. Same applies to us. Plato definitely thought these forms were real and taught they're located in another realm. Aristotle thought they existed in the objects themselves, many Christian platonist claimed they existed in the mind of God. All agree the forms were real.
@@JP-rf8rr Right, but are human forms individual or a collective participation in a singular form. Basically I'm asking what is the relationship between souls and personhood.
@@vngelicath1580
Aquinas himself might help here. This comes from question 76 from part 1 of the summa.
The question is
"It seems that the intellective principle is not multiplied as the bodies are multiplied, but that instead
there is just a single intellect for all men (sit unus intellectus in omnibus hominibus)"
Aquinas answers saying "In Physics 2 the Philosopher says that particular causes are related to
particulars in the same way that universal causes are related to universals. But it is impossible for a soul
that is one in species to belong to animals that are diverse in species. Therefore, it is impossible for an
intellective soul that is one in number to belong to things that are numerically diverse."
He goes on in further detail here: " It is altogether impossible for there to be a single intellect for all men.
This is utterly obvious if, in keeping with Plato’s opinion, a man is the intellect itself. For it would
follow that if there is just one intellect for Socrates and Plato, then Socrates and Plato are a single man
and are distinct from one another only in what lies outside the essence of both. And in that case the
distinction between Socrates and Plato will be no different from the distinction between a man wearing a
tunic and the same man wearing a cape (distinctio non alia quam hominis tunicati et cappati)-which is
completely absurd.
It is likewise clear that this is impossible if, in keeping with Aristotle’s opinion, the intellect is
thought of as a part, i.e., a power, of that soul which serves as the form of a man. For it is impossible that many numerically diverse things should have a single form, just as it is impossible that numerically
diverse things should have a single esse. For the form is the source of esse (principium essendi).
Similarly, it is clear that the claim in question is impossible regardless of how one thinks of the
intellect’s union with this man and that man:
(a) For instance, it is obvious that if they are a single principal agent and two instruments, then one
can say that there is a single agent absolutely speaking but more than one action-just as, if a single man
touches different things with his two hands, there will be one toucher and two touches.
(b) Conversely, if they are a single instrument and two different principal agents, then there would
be more than one agent but a single action-in the same way that if many men are dragging a boat with a
single rope, there will be many draggers but only a single dragging.
(c) On the other hand, if they are a single principal agent and a single instrument, then there will be
one agent and one action-just as, when a blacksmith strikes with one hammer, there is one striker and
one striking.
But it is clear that however the intellect might be united to or connected with this man or that man,
the intellect has preeminence over the other things that belong to a man. For instance, the sentient
powers obey the intellect and serve it. Therefore, if one supposed that two men had more than one
intellect but a single sensory power-for instance, if the two men had a single eye-then there would be
more than one man seeing but just a single act of seeing (visio). But if there is a single intellect, then no
matter how different the other powers used by the intellect as instruments are, Socrates and Plato could
not in any way be called anything but a single knower (intelligens). And if we add that the very act of
intellective understanding (ipsum intelligere), which is the intellect’s action, is not effected by any organ
other than the intellect itself, it will follow further that there is both a single agent and a single action;
that is, it will follow that all men are a single knower and that there is a single act of understanding (I
mean with respect to the same intelligible object)."
This is a lot to read, but I hope it answers your question. If you still want more information on classical understanding of the soul (Something I'm still trying to learn about myself) here are some resources.
www.newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm
www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/Part%201/st1-ques75.pdf
www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/Part%201/st1-ques76.pdf
I like the new setup! Slick!
Really enjoyed this one (not that I don't generally enjoy your videos) and am looking forward to part two.
On an unrelated matter, where would be the best place to send you an email? The email address provided on the Just and Sinner website? I had a couple questions on ordination for pastors and deaconesses in the LCMS vs AALC church concerning any requirements or lack thereof on the question of creationism. Due to the level of intensity the subject can sometimes elicit, I thought it better to ask my questions via email than on a public TH-cam forum.
I would say that up until the MRI and other medical instruments were invented, researched, and broadly implemented, the entire field of psychology and the DSM were based on anecdotal experiences... just a lot of them. The ability to view brain activity provided more objective understanding, but psychological medicine is still largely based on patients self-reporting.
Have you read Peter Van Inwagen on materialism? I'd be interested to see you interact with him.
I look forward to your next video(s) on this. Are you going to interact with Seraphim Rose's view on toll houses? I've read that it, at least his take, is quite controversial in Eastern Orthodoxy.
Can you start doing time stamps ?
Can dreams be some kind of evidence for the soul? Many individuals dream about individuals from the past and present without seeing their faces or anything physical. Can we apprehend the “soul” of the person in a way we can’t during consciousness?
What do you mean dreaming about other individuals?
Hey! I listened to this podcast on my way to work and it's very nice to hear a good and reasonable take from a Lutheran on NEDs. I wish I could say this to you in private, but I don't know how to reach you. Um, could you, if you'd be kind enough to those of us who have mild misophonia, not drink coffee like that? Thanks!:)
So where are your sources? Blind people being able to see or having accurate accounts is remarkable and it might even change my "naturalistic" perspective but I need to see where you are getting these claims.
I really liked Habermas on Christ's Resurrection because it reinvigorated the oldest apology. I really wish he hadn't gotten into near death. It discredited his better work.
I am interesting in this, very cool.
odd question, but how long does it take you to read a book around 2-300 pages when preparing for these videos
Around 3 hours on average.
I see some Hindus that had NDEs and they speak about see Hindu gods in theses experiences. I don't have a strong position in philosophy of mind in this moment, but I doubt NDE can be used to prove Christiany, maybe would be only a proof for body-soul dualism.
Exactly. I found NDE's 'don't work' in converting people to the Christian faith (which means they can NOT be of God). When Mohommatans etc make similar claims, NDE's don't convince anyone. This is why in debates, NDE's simply don't work. I do believe NDE's are definitely real experiences unlike anything else. NDE's work very well to sell people into Universalism, New Age, Deism, etc. etc.
They do provide good evidence for the reality of the soul, as long as you use good criterion on which experiences are evidentially valuable. One aspect is the person had to have seen something going on in the real world that can be verified as having happened, but impossible for them to have witnessed (since they would have been physically dead). One account I heard of was a man who died in the hospital and saw his body below him where the doctor removed the glasses from his face and placed it in a drawer. He also went through the wall to the nextdoor room and saw a man having his leg amputated. When he came back, he told the doctor what he had seen, and asked for his glasses back from the drawer the doctor had put it in. The doctor also affirmed that there had indeed been a leg amputation happening nextdoor.
It would be interesting to compare christian vs other religious NDEs using this criteria. I can think of one famous explicitly Christian NDE that works in this way. I wonder if more research could be done to compare them.
@@AlphaOmega888 That is the cognitive bias resulting in their preexisting beliefs before the alleged NDE. It's quite obvious and I am glad you pointed this out. And when confronted with opposing logic and facts regarding this or their claim, results in their corresponding cognitive dissonance. It's a clinically pathological condition and part of modern psychology. I just commented on this video regarding this, and the logical analysis of a NDE as if we took a claim of NDE to a court of law and put it on trial. I think based on what you said here you might find it provocative. Look at the other comments here and you should see it.
@@emmagrace6396 Did you actually confirm the testimony of the doctor involved? And the length of time the patient was said to be dead? That matters of course, but worse that testimony rather would confirm the existence of ghosts, doomed spirits who must haunt places and watch the living go on as they exist in a lonely, disembodied state! I don't know about you, but the idea of haunting a hospital, floating through walls forever does not sound good!
@@michaelhoward3048 I heard the story from a video on the argument for the soul by Inspiring Philosophy. He used a real scientific study of the occurrence as part of his evidence. Here's a link to the video: th-cam.com/video/nnTVPCwPjhI/w-d-xo.html
Haven't watched it in a while but I remember that after a while he saw a bright light and wanted to go to it, but was sent back to his body. Presumably his soul would have passed into the next world at that point if it hadn't been for his being sent back, so he wouldn't have drifted around the hospital for all eternity.
(Yes this is a very long comment and may overwhelm the non-reader who prefers only TH-cam videos, but for those accustomed to reading you might find this interesting and informative. It is an examination of a near-death experience as if it were a case in a court of law and help some understand the reasoning behind the skepticism faced when making such NDE claims. I wrote it. It's mine and I would be happy to argue any refutations to it. It is opinion, not fact, and only follows the Laws of Logic as a guide, not any preexisting belief or political agenda.)
Suppose we took this evidence of a near death experience to court and presented legal arguments based on the testimony of the witness. The witness being the one who claimed to have the experience, who in our scenario would be the defendant who is defending their claim. Now let's pretend that I am the prosecuting attorney for the State and give my opening statement to the court before proceeding with the trial. This is NOT a refutation of the witness' claim, but establishing the expectations of the defense to present their case according to the law. In this case, the law being the Laws of Logic since no criminal laws obviously apply here. But some framework must be established to test the validity of their testimony against a reasonable precedence. So, here is a proposed opening statement by the prosecution presented before the judge who, in this case, the judge is our own reason:
Ladies and Gentleman of the Jury. Your Honor. The State now wishes to proceed with our opening statement in the case of "Our Reason" vs "NDE and the Afterlife"
What is Death? What is Life?
Can we be both alive and dead at the same time? Can we coexist with death? And let's be clear the difference between being alive and being dead. Being alive we have thought, memories, emotions, sensation, awareness, and a body with senses in which we can experience all these elements of life. Of being alive. So is there any single one of these aspects of being alive which the Law of Contradiction does not apply, thus breaking the law itself?
If the law still holds, then no aspect of life can be a part of death. And death is the absence of life by definition. And so if we attempt an alternate definition of death to escape the Law of Contradiction regarding our coexistence with it, what is the epistemic discernment we must use to do so? Empirical or Theoretical deliberation? Does it require presuppositions that are derived by means outside the definition of death itself?
And furthermore, if we still hold true the Law of Contradiction, then we cannot also change the definition of death, and that it is the absence of life and all the aspects we described life such as thought, memories, emotions, sensation, awareness, without breaking another law called The Law of Identity. The Law of Identity states that a thing is identical to itself and is defined as a term and not a proposition. And The Law of Identity would conclude that death is the opposite of life and cannot contain any property that is used to define life itself.
Therefore, based upon the logical parameters presented so far, according to the Law of Contradiction and the Law of Identity, there can be no afterlife. No continuation of any aspect of life, as defined, which would contradict the Law of Identity or The Law of Contradiction. We therefore, upon death, cannot expect to have thinking and deliberation, the memory of who we were or the experiences during our lives, any emotions such as love, anger, happiness or sadness, any sensation of sights, sounds, tastes, smells or touch, and any awareness of our surroundings or the conditions we would be in, pleasurable or painful. A dreamless sleep as Socrates contemplated while awaiting his execution. An afterlife identical to the beforelife, at the same place we were during the Civil War or when the Pyramids were built.
Any attempts to redefine either the meaning of life or death using presuppositions, such as "eternal life" or "immortality", are illogical and contradict both the Law of Contradiction and The Law of Identity. And if a proposition is derived through the use of illogical presuppositions, then it's conclusions can also be considered illogical and therefore irrational given the deliberate use of the illogical premise. Consider Aristotle on this who established the Laws of Logic we are using in our deliberations: "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal." If all A are B, and all C are A, then all C are B. For us to arrive at a truthful conclusion then the premises must be true. Further appeals to faith do not override a deliberate misuse of logic and if it persists then it must be concluded that the proposition is irrational and therefore false. A false pretense predicated on the assumption of illogical conclusions derived through illogical means.
But the philosopher who did not contradict himself regarding his proposition of death is Epicurus who said: "When we are death is not and when death comes we are not" and he used proper discernment based on the Law of Contradiction and the Law of Identity. And when Paul approached the Epicureans, followers and students of Epicurus, and the Stoics, followers and students of Zeno, in Acts 17:18 of the New Testament at the Agora in Athens, the philosophers called him a babbler, using the same false pretenses explained previously, and sent him on his way. For he spoke of dead people coming to life again and even then, without evidence, that requires the suspension of our reason and disregarding known observations of death to accept, prompting the Epicureans and Stoics rejection of Paul's claims of resurrection as well as the "strange god" he presented. But of course, philosophers have more strict epistemic discernment!
And upon further examination of such claims within scripture, there are inconsistencies in those claims which provide further evidence of their erroneous nature. I am referring to Matt. 27:52-53 which states "The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many." Here we see a claim of resurrection involving "many bodies" which then rose and "appeared to many". Given the significance of even the single resurrection of Jesus which essentially the entire religion is based, we find it impossible for the claim of many resurrections of the saints, who appeared to many, to be omitted or ignored in the other three gospels which are also claimed to be testimonies to the same events that would have been occurring during the reported rising of the saints. Many bodies rising is more significant than one and we feel such a claim should not have gone unnoticed by the other three gospels of Mark, Luke and John. And furthermore provides reasonable doubt and grounds for skepticism of such general claims of resurrection having taken place at all.
So, in conclusion, the State believes it has strong evidence to have reasonable doubt and skepticism, and therefore dismissal, of claims of an afterlife experience according to the Laws of Logic and lack of Empirical evidence. We feel the evidence of such experiences fail to meet either the logical or empirical requirements to consider such evidence as valid, nor meets the demands necessary to establish such evidence as fact. In addition, we feel there is sufficient medical evidence available which provides reasonable doubt to the claim, and the acceptance of claims of NDE or the Afterlife, including contact with deceased relatives or deities, therefore must be considered subjective testimony and biased considering any attempted presuppositions by the defense regarding an established belief (i.e religious) in such claims, and the claims of subsequent believers, who may be operating under the limitations of cognitive bias compelled by, but not limited to, the internalized fear of death and/or the hope of the continuation of themselves beyond the extinction of the body, the brain and the consciousness to allow the capacity to reunite with beloved family members and their own respective deities.
That indeed these psychological compulsions are producing the emotional barriers that contribute to the cognitive bias and their inability to employ logic for the purposes of critical thinking and discernment. Therefore, these testimonies of NDE's are accepted as the necessary evidence to confirm their preexisting beliefs and demonstrate the cognitive bias in effect, and when confronted with opposing facts and logical refutations to these NDE testimonies the resulting cognitive dissonance produces the adverse effects inherent in it's condition, such as discomfort, anger, stress, worry, and general feelings of negativity. In addition, as a result of their preexisting beliefs resulting in cognitive bias it may be preventing the objective assessment of the evidence limiting them to their own subjectivity regarding the validity of this, or any other NDE testimony, as well as contributing to the alleged NDE claimed by the defendant themselves through their own subconscious desires and expectations of the existence of an afterlife during their experience.
The State Rests, Your Honor
Nintendo characters? Santa Clause? Yamatoots? Yamraj?
For those who want to know the full story..........
THE NDE STUDIES.....(LA Times excerpts)
Researchers estimate that around 17% of people have an NDE. That means about 80% don't.
Scratch beneath those alleged flat EKG lines and the stories are a veritable Twilight Zone of inconsistencies. Some near-death voyagers claim to have met God - BUT A FEW SAW ELVIS PRESLEY OR GROUCHO MARX, researchers say. Others get to heaven not through the famous "tunnel", but ABOARD GHOSTLY TAXI CABS, FERRIES THAT CROSS THE RIVER STYX, OR SPANGLED COWS.
Even some children - often touted as the best source of unbiased information - sometimes return from "death" CLAIMING THEY WERE GREETED IN THE OTHER WORLD by STILL LIVING TEACHERS, and NINTENDO CHARACTERS, and COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS.
If encounters with conscious plants, talking insects, roosters, and turtles, doesn’t give you pause about NDEs, perhaps NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WILL. Melvin Morse reports that a 10-year-old boy had an NDE where he ENCOUNTERED A VIDEO-GAMING WIZARD who loved Nintendo. Karl Jansen similarly reports finding childhood NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH VIDEO GAME AND COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS.
In a collection of pediatric NDEs published in 1990, Serdahely even found a case where A GIRL ENCOUNTERED A FAVORITE TOY DURING HER NDE - AN OLD STUFFED ANIMAL.
They differ between people and cultures. Instead of a tunnel and angels, EAST INDIANS MAY DESCRIBE THE RIVER GANGES AND A PARTICULAR GURU. HINDUS WHO BELIEVE IN YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of death, EXPERIENCED MEETING HIM. A Hindu girl "died" AND WENT TO HEAVEN ON A COW. Would that mean western people will be riding cows to heaven? Jews who don't believe in Jesus or "hell", experienced meeting God as described in the Old Testament, while messianic Jews experienced God as Jesus. Any reports of Christians meeting Muhammad, or Muslims meeting the Virgin Mary, or Jews meeting Guru Nanak, if they exist, have not been publicized.
Dr. Richard Eby had an NDE and allegedly Jesus told him he had to back, and that he (Jesus) would be returning (2nd coming) before he died permanently. BUT DR. RICHARD EBY HAS NOW DIED AND JESUS HAS NOT RETURNED.
A few hospitals have placed signs in their cardiac units - with nonsensical messages visible only from above - BUT SO FAR NOBODY HAS RETURNED FROM DEATH CLAIMING TO HAVE FLOATED UP AND SEEN ONE.
In one study carried out, the experiences of 16 Asian Indians were compared with those of Americans, and IT WAS FOUND THAT THE INDIANS HAD ENCOUNTERED YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of the dead, WHILE THE AMERICANS HAD NOT.
You would expect that if any one particular religious account of the afterlife was true, NDEs would be pretty much the same. BUT THESE ACCOUNTS ARE SO VARIED AND ARE ARE ALL BASED ON CULTURAL EXPOSURE. IN INDIA, PEOPLE SEE HINDU GODS; IN SAUDI ARABIA ITS ALLAH, MOHAMED, AND A BUNCH OF VIRGINS. The kid from the book/movie Heaven Is For Real, saw a Jesus with sea-green blue eyes ON A RAINBOW COLORED HORSE, GOD WITH HUGE WINGS, YELLOW HAIR AND BLUE EYES; and ONE LITTLE GIRL WENT TO HEAVEN AND WAS GREETED BY A PORTLY MAN WITH A WHITE BEARD AND RED CAP, aka SANTA CLAUSE.
The Mapuche people of South America and residents of Hawaii are more likely to SEE LANDSCAPES AND VOLCANOES, whereas NDEs in Thailand rarely involve landmarks, tunnels, or light. For Tibetans, light features more heavily AS DO ILLUSIONS OF REINCARNATION. Europeans and North Americans often visualize beautiful gardens; intriguingly the Kalai of Melanesia are more inclined to SEE AN INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD OF FACTORIES. An NDEr's subjective recollections can be attributed to many factors: THE NDEr's PSYCHOLOGY, PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, BACKGROUND, ETC., NOT JUST CULTURE.
The terrain of Heaven also varies wildly - from gardens, forests, and CATTLE FILLED PASTURES in some accounts, to clouds, COMPUTER ROOMS OR CASTLES, in others. A TEXAN SAW BARBED WIRE FENCES IN THE AFTERLIFE. Micronesians describe LARGE NOISY CITIES WITH CARS AND SKYSCRAPERS.
Drug addicts, alcoholics, felons (murder), suicides, hedonists, abusers, mean people, and gay people, have all claimed to encounter heaven. Strangely, people have claimed to enter some "hell" FOR THE SAME REASONS. EVEN THE INFAMOUS ADOLF HITLER HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN HEAVEN. Again, strangely, he's also been seen in some "hell". Contradictions abound.
There are reports of bad NDE trips involving TORTURES BY ELVES, GIANTS, MONSTERS, etc. Some parapsychologists take these as evidence of the mythical places of various religions. But, IF SO, THEN WHAT IS ONE TO CONCLUDE FROM THE FACT THAT OVER 80% OF PEOPLE NEAR DEATH DO NOT EXPERIENCE ANYTHING, neither the heavenly or the diabolical?
This is a wonder. Is the hereafter actually mining and refining raw materials needed to build castles, cars, barbed wire fences, computers, and skyscrapers? From where do they get this material and the tools? Not to mention the raw materials and tools needed to construct an ever increasing number of those cages and cubes in the Christian hell, as a few claim. Who builds those cages? And which of the variety of "hells" do you actually go to? Christian? Buddhist? Spiritualist? Hindu? Muslim? Some other one? The answer seems to be whichever one the experiencer has been exposed to, as Thai NDErs regularly claim to encounter LORD YAMA AND YAMATOOTS, COMPLETE WITH TALKING DECEASED ROOSTERS, and being sentenced to Buddhist "hell" for butchering and eating chicken, then reincarnated as birds. DOES THAT MEAN WESTERNERS WILL UNKNOWINGLY BE HEADING TO BUDDHIST "HELL" FOR EATING CHICKEN? Thai accounts state that butchers become lumps of meat in Buddhist "hell", so what then awaits Western slaughterhouse workers?
Even in her rather homogeneous Western European clientele, Kubler-Ross could see the effects of early enculturation: " I NEVER ENCOUNTERED A PROTESTANT CHILD WHO SAW THE VIRGIN MARY IN HIS LAST MINUTES, YET SHE WAS PERCEIVED BY MANY CATHOLIC CHILDREN."
But there also are some hard-to-explain differences, Melvin Morse says. Whereas American near-death survivors are typically sent back by God because “it’s not your time yet,” INDIA'S AFTERLIFE VISITORS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE TOLD THERE WAS A “CLERICAL ERROR.”
Even more curious: SOMETIMES THE BEING OF LIGHT IS ELVIS PRESLEY. Moody has chronicled at least two such sightings.
A PERSON MAY APPEAR DEAD TO OUR SENSES OR OUR SCIENTIFIC EQUIPMENT, BUT STILL BE PERCEIVING. In fact, we now have evidence that patients who appear brain dead, may in fact be capable of conscious thought. In 2006, scientists in the UK and Belgium did an fMRI on a woman in a vegetative state and FOUND THAT PARTS OF HER BRAIN SHOWED ACTIVITY WHEN SHE WAS SPOKEN TO, AND ASKED TO THINK ABOUT THINGS LIKE PLAYING TENNIS.
Yet the evidence for near-death paranormal powers remains shaky at best. TWO STUDIES HAVE FOUND THAT PATIENTS’ “OUT OF BODY” ACCOUNTS OF WHAT HAPPENED IN THE OPERATING ROOM WERE WRONG. So were the 1988 Armageddon forecasts hyped by Ring and others.
Nintendo characters? Santa Clause? Yamatoots? Yamraj?
For those who want to know the full story..........
THE NDE STUDIES.....(LA Times excerpts)
Researchers estimate that around 17% of people have an NDE. That means about 80% don't.
Scratch beneath those alleged flat EKG lines and the stories are a veritable Twilight Zone of inconsistencies. Some near-death voyagers claim to have met God - BUT A FEW SAW ELVIS PRESLEY OR GROUCHO MARX, researchers say. Others get to heaven not through the famous "tunnel", but ABOARD GHOSTLY TAXI CABS, FERRIES THAT CROSS THE RIVER STYX, OR SPANGLED COWS.
Even some children - often touted as the best source of unbiased information - sometimes return from "death" CLAIMING THEY WERE GREETED IN THE OTHER WORLD by STILL LIVING TEACHERS, and NINTENDO CHARACTERS, and COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS.
If encounters with conscious plants, talking insects, roosters, and turtles, doesn’t give you pause about NDEs, perhaps NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WILL. Melvin Morse reports that a 10-year-old boy had an NDE where he ENCOUNTERED A VIDEO-GAMING WIZARD who loved Nintendo. Karl Jansen similarly reports finding childhood NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH VIDEO GAME AND COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS.
In a collection of pediatric NDEs published in 1990, Serdahely even found a case where A GIRL ENCOUNTERED A FAVORITE TOY DURING HER NDE - AN OLD STUFFED ANIMAL.
They differ between people and cultures. Instead of a tunnel and angels, EAST INDIANS MAY DESCRIBE THE RIVER GANGES AND A PARTICULAR GURU. HINDUS WHO BELIEVE IN YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of death, EXPERIENCED MEETING HIM. A Hindu girl "died" AND WENT TO HEAVEN ON A COW. Would that mean western people will be riding cows to heaven? Jews who don't believe in Jesus or "hell", experienced meeting God as described in the Old Testament, while messianic Jews experienced God as Jesus. Any reports of Christians meeting Muhammad, or Muslims meeting the Virgin Mary, or Jews meeting Guru Nanak, if they exist, have not been publicized.
Dr. Richard Eby had an NDE and allegedly Jesus told him he had to back, and that he (Jesus) would be returning (2nd coming) before he died permanently. BUT DR. RICHARD EBY HAS NOW DIED AND JESUS HAS NOT RETURNED.
A few hospitals have placed signs in their cardiac units - with nonsensical messages visible only from above - BUT SO FAR NOBODY HAS RETURNED FROM DEATH CLAIMING TO HAVE FLOATED UP AND SEEN ONE.
In one study carried out, the experiences of 16 Asian Indians were compared with those of Americans, and IT WAS FOUND THAT THE INDIANS HAD ENCOUNTERED YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of the dead, WHILE THE AMERICANS HAD NOT.
You would expect that if any one particular religious account of the afterlife was true, NDEs would be pretty much the same. BUT THESE ACCOUNTS ARE SO VARIED AND ARE ARE ALL BASED ON CULTURAL EXPOSURE. IN INDIA, PEOPLE SEE HINDU GODS; IN SAUDI ARABIA ITS ALLAH, MOHAMED, AND A BUNCH OF VIRGINS. The kid from the book/movie Heaven Is For Real, saw a Jesus with sea-green blue eyes ON A RAINBOW COLORED HORSE, GOD WITH HUGE WINGS, YELLOW HAIR AND BLUE EYES; and ONE LITTLE GIRL WENT TO HEAVEN AND WAS GREETED BY A PORTLY MAN WITH A WHITE BEARD AND RED CAP, aka SANTA CLAUSE.
The Mapuche people of South America and residents of Hawaii are more likely to SEE LANDSCAPES AND VOLCANOES, whereas NDEs in Thailand rarely involve landmarks, tunnels, or light. For Tibetans, light features more heavily AS DO ILLUSIONS OF REINCARNATION. Europeans and North Americans often visualize beautiful gardens; intriguingly the Kalai of Melanesia are more inclined to SEE AN INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD OF FACTORIES. An NDEr's subjective recollections can be attributed to many factors: THE NDEr's PSYCHOLOGY, PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, BACKGROUND, ETC., NOT JUST CULTURE.
The terrain of Heaven also varies wildly - from gardens, forests, and CATTLE FILLED PASTURES in some accounts, to clouds, COMPUTER ROOMS OR CASTLES, in others. A TEXAN SAW BARBED WIRE FENCES IN THE AFTERLIFE. Micronesians describe LARGE NOISY CITIES WITH CARS AND SKYSCRAPERS.
Drug addicts, alcoholics, felons (murder), suicides, hedonists, abusers, mean people, and gay people, have all claimed to encounter heaven. Strangely, people have claimed to enter some "hell" FOR THE SAME REASONS. EVEN THE INFAMOUS ADOLF HITLER HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN HEAVEN. Again, strangely, he's also been seen in some "hell". Contradictions abound.
There are reports of bad NDE trips involving TORTURES BY ELVES, GIANTS, MONSTERS, etc. Some parapsychologists take these as evidence of the mythical places of various religions. But, IF SO, THEN WHAT IS ONE TO CONCLUDE FROM THE FACT THAT OVER 80% OF PEOPLE NEAR DEATH DO NOT EXPERIENCE ANYTHING, neither the heavenly or the diabolical?
This is a wonder. Is the hereafter actually mining and refining raw materials needed to build castles, cars, barbed wire fences, computers, and skyscrapers? From where do they get this material and the tools? Not to mention the raw materials and tools needed to construct an ever increasing number of those cages and cubes in the Christian hell, as a few claim. Who builds those cages? And which of the variety of "hells" do you actually go to? Christian? Buddhist? Spiritualist? Hindu? Muslim? Some other one? The answer seems to be whichever one the experiencer has been exposed to, as Thai NDErs regularly claim to encounter LORD YAMA AND YAMATOOTS, COMPLETE WITH TALKING DECEASED ROOSTERS, and being sentenced to Buddhist "hell" for butchering and eating chicken, then reincarnated as birds. DOES THAT MEAN WESTERNERS WILL UNKNOWINGLY BE HEADING TO BUDDHIST "HELL" FOR EATING CHICKEN? Thai accounts state that butchers become lumps of meat in Buddhist "hell", so what then awaits Western slaughterhouse workers?
Even in her rather homogeneous Western European clientele, Kubler-Ross could see the effects of early enculturation: " I NEVER ENCOUNTERED A PROTESTANT CHILD WHO SAW THE VIRGIN MARY IN HIS LAST MINUTES, YET SHE WAS PERCEIVED BY MANY CATHOLIC CHILDREN."
NDEs certainly destroys materialism. There are now hundreds of documented experiences and a key Christian figure researching this is Dr Gary Habbermas.
Nintendo characters? Santa Clause? Yamatoots? Yamraj?
For those who want to know the full story..........
THE NDE STUDIES.....(LA Times excerpts)
Researchers estimate that around 17% of people have an NDE. That means about 80% don't.
Scratch beneath those alleged flat EKG lines and the stories are a veritable Twilight Zone of inconsistencies. Some near-death voyagers claim to have met God - BUT A FEW SAW ELVIS PRESLEY OR GROUCHO MARX, researchers say. Others get to heaven not through the famous "tunnel", but ABOARD GHOSTLY TAXI CABS, FERRIES THAT CROSS THE RIVER STYX, OR SPANGLED COWS.
Even some children - often touted as the best source of unbiased information - sometimes return from "death" CLAIMING THEY WERE GREETED IN THE OTHER WORLD by STILL LIVING TEACHERS, and NINTENDO CHARACTERS, and COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS.
If encounters with conscious plants, talking insects, roosters, and turtles, doesn’t give you pause about NDEs, perhaps NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WILL. Melvin Morse reports that a 10-year-old boy had an NDE where he ENCOUNTERED A VIDEO-GAMING WIZARD who loved Nintendo. Karl Jansen similarly reports finding childhood NDEs THAT INCLUDE ENCOUNTERS WITH VIDEO GAME AND COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS.
In a collection of pediatric NDEs published in 1990, Serdahely even found a case where A GIRL ENCOUNTERED A FAVORITE TOY DURING HER NDE - AN OLD STUFFED ANIMAL.
They differ between people and cultures. Instead of a tunnel and angels, EAST INDIANS MAY DESCRIBE THE RIVER GANGES AND A PARTICULAR GURU. HINDUS WHO BELIEVE IN YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of death, EXPERIENCED MEETING HIM. A Hindu girl "died" AND WENT TO HEAVEN ON A COW. Would that mean western people will be riding cows to heaven? Jews who don't believe in Jesus or "hell", experienced meeting God as described in the Old Testament, while messianic Jews experienced God as Jesus. Any reports of Christians meeting Muhammad, or Muslims meeting the Virgin Mary, or Jews meeting Guru Nanak, if they exist, have not been publicized.
Dr. Richard Eby had an NDE and allegedly Jesus told him he had to back, and that he (Jesus) would be returning (2nd coming) before he died permanently. BUT DR. RICHARD EBY HAS NOW DIED AND JESUS HAS NOT RETURNED.
A few hospitals have placed signs in their cardiac units - with nonsensical messages visible only from above - BUT SO FAR NOBODY HAS RETURNED FROM DEATH CLAIMING TO HAVE FLOATED UP AND SEEN ONE.
In one study carried out, the experiences of 16 Asian Indians were compared with those of Americans, and IT WAS FOUND THAT THE INDIANS HAD ENCOUNTERED YAMRAJ, the Hindu god of the dead, WHILE THE AMERICANS HAD NOT.
You would expect that if any one particular religious account of the afterlife was true, NDEs would be pretty much the same. BUT THESE ACCOUNTS ARE SO VARIED AND ARE ARE ALL BASED ON CULTURAL EXPOSURE. IN INDIA, PEOPLE SEE HINDU GODS; IN SAUDI ARABIA ITS ALLAH, MOHAMED, AND A BUNCH OF VIRGINS. The kid from the book/movie Heaven Is For Real, saw a Jesus with sea-green blue eyes ON A RAINBOW COLORED HORSE, GOD WITH HUGE WINGS, YELLOW HAIR AND BLUE EYES; and ONE LITTLE GIRL WENT TO HEAVEN AND WAS GREETED BY A PORTLY MAN WITH A WHITE BEARD AND RED CAP, aka SANTA CLAUSE.
The Mapuche people of South America and residents of Hawaii are more likely to SEE LANDSCAPES AND VOLCANOES, whereas NDEs in Thailand rarely involve landmarks, tunnels, or light. For Tibetans, light features more heavily AS DO ILLUSIONS OF REINCARNATION. Europeans and North Americans often visualize beautiful gardens; intriguingly the Kalai of Melanesia are more inclined to SEE AN INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD OF FACTORIES. An NDEr's subjective recollections can be attributed to many factors: THE NDEr's PSYCHOLOGY, PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, BACKGROUND, ETC., NOT JUST CULTURE.
The terrain of Heaven also varies wildly - from gardens, forests, and CATTLE FILLED PASTURES in some accounts, to clouds, COMPUTER ROOMS OR CASTLES, in others. A TEXAN SAW BARBED WIRE FENCES IN THE AFTERLIFE. Micronesians describe LARGE NOISY CITIES WITH CARS AND SKYSCRAPERS.
Drug addicts, alcoholics, felons (murder), suicides, hedonists, abusers, mean people, and gay people, have all claimed to encounter heaven. Strangely, people have claimed to enter some "hell" FOR THE SAME REASONS. EVEN THE INFAMOUS ADOLF HITLER HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN HEAVEN. Again, strangely, he's also been seen in some "hell". Contradictions abound.
There are reports of bad NDE trips involving TORTURES BY ELVES, GIANTS, MONSTERS, etc. Some parapsychologists take these as evidence of the mythical places of various religions. But, IF SO, THEN WHAT IS ONE TO CONCLUDE FROM THE FACT THAT OVER 80% OF PEOPLE NEAR DEATH DO NOT EXPERIENCE ANYTHING, neither the heavenly or the diabolical?
This is a wonder. Is the hereafter actually mining and refining raw materials needed to build castles, cars, barbed wire fences, computers, and skyscrapers? From where do they get this material and the tools? Not to mention the raw materials and tools needed to construct an ever increasing number of those cages and cubes in the Christian hell, as a few claim. Who builds those cages? And which of the variety of "hells" do you actually go to? Christian? Buddhist? Spiritualist? Hindu? Muslim? Some other one? The answer seems to be whichever one the experiencer has been exposed to, as Thai NDErs regularly claim to encounter LORD YAMA AND YAMATOOTS, COMPLETE WITH TALKING DECEASED ROOSTERS, and being sentenced to Buddhist "hell" for butchering and eating chicken, then reincarnated as birds. DOES THAT MEAN WESTERNERS WILL UNKNOWINGLY BE HEADING TO BUDDHIST "HELL" FOR EATING CHICKEN? Thai accounts state that butchers become lumps of meat in Buddhist "hell", so what then awaits Western slaughterhouse workers?
Even in her rather homogeneous Western European clientele, Kubler-Ross could see the effects of early enculturation: " I NEVER ENCOUNTERED A PROTESTANT CHILD WHO SAW THE VIRGIN MARY IN HIS LAST MINUTES, YET SHE WAS PERCEIVED BY MANY CATHOLIC CHILDREN."
In many NDE's, people describe what they perceived as Jesus. He often is seen with KEYS. But be careful!
-Rev 1:17-18: I am [Jesus in heaven]..I HOLD the KEYS OF HELL and KEYS OF DEATH"
-The keys of Heaven were given on to Peter on earth Mat 16:19 - this is why:
-MARTIN LUTHER: “It is as if He [Jesus] were saying..They are INDEED the KEYS of HEAVEN, but they are NOT FOUND in Heaven. I left them ON EARTH” -(Martin Luther, The Keys) -So what keys are people seeing in NDE's?:
-Since they cannot be invented keys, or fraudulent keys as shown below. It must follow that the keys seen in NDE's are probably a clear sign to make you run away quick!
-MARTIN LUTHER: “'So we stand here..staring up to heaven and yet we INVENT OTHER KEYS .. It is as if He [Jesus] were saying: WHY are you staring heavenward IN SEARCH of THE KEYS? Do you NOT UNDERSTAND I GAVE THEM TO PETER?" -(Martin Luther, The Keys).
-"Mormon President Kimball turned to the STATUE OF PETER and POINTED to the LARGE SET OF KEYS in Peter’s right hand, he proclaimed: ‘The keys of priesthood authority which PETER HELD as President of the Church *I NOW HOLD* AS PRESIDENT OF THE CHURCH in this dispensation.’ - ldsscriptureteachings
-"In 1836, MOSES, ELIAS and ELIJAH appeared to JOSEPH SMITH and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple to RESTORE KEYS”
-
He isn't often seen with keys in NDEs, and this whole post is extremely silly.
If I didn't think you were talking about NDE's I would of assumed you were talking about DMT trips. More "real" than real. Meeting entities ect.
Argument for fun sake: what if carma/reincarnation/sansara are actually true, and the very purpose of the Christ is to abolish it? I wonder if it would actually make sense to explain the Gospel to Hindu in this way?
Well, even in Hinduism the goal is not to reincarnate or be reincarnated but to escape this realm and be united with God.
So they have similar ideas but they are not explicitly explained in Christian terms but have different names for it