Near-death is not death. Death is what you don’t come back from.
Hallucinations are not a vision of Heaven.
“Near-death is not death. Death is what you don’t come back from.
Hallucinations are not a vision of Heaven.”
It is appointed unto man once to die, after that the judgement. (Once)
That’s in the book of Hebrews, don’t have time to look it up - back to the Cardinal game.
How do you know? Have you been dead before?
Lazarus dead 4 days.
Who said anything about near death being the same as death?? Just say , hey, I don’t believe any of this instead of making useless statements.
Of course. And the reason the people who write about these things relate visions that may seem a bit pedestrian to the rest of us--herds of butterflies, a blond Jesus, lovely gardens--are because our heavenly hosts have to speak the language our limited human minds can comprehend. No, the people who are blessed to have these experiences have to be able to grasp them and then relay them to the rest of us. As you note, they don't actually die and go to heaven, but only seem to be on the doorstep. Surely our minds could not circumscribe the joys of heaven. Naturally their visions may seem somewhat mundane. But that doesn't mean these things didn't happen or that the patients haven't been entrusted with an important message for the rest of the world.
Lazarus came back from death.
Yes, that was not “near-death”.
It was resurrection.
Then I wasn't in the room.
I was surrounded by a warm golden glow, in clouds, and in the near distance was a man dressed in robes, appearing much as Jesus is commonly pictured.
I was startled, I knew I was very ill (the only time I have ever been in a hospital at that point), and I said, "If you are who I think you are, and you want me to come with you, I will." Then, (thinking of the then two-year-old granddaughter we were raising) said, "But if you don't mind there are some things I'd like to do first (raising that child)."
The man said, gently, "Go back, it is not yet your time."
Then I was back in the hospital room, and started coughing. All night I coughed up what can only be described as chunks of olive green gunk, and by morning I could breathe again. After one more night I was released from the hospital, to the amazement of the doctors and the respiratory techs who told me they were considering putting me on a respirator the night I heard them murmuring in the hall.
Now you can pooh-pooh that experience all you want, if you want, but I KNOW there is a there there.
I don’t automatically believe nor automatically disbelieve what is called “private revelation.”
St. Hildegard of Bingen had them on for over 70 years, and they weren’t “near-death” experiences either: they were intense visions that came to her, on and off, through all 5 senses, from age 3 until her death at age 81.
Even she did not consider them automatically worthy of belief, and for a long time didn’t know if they were a delusion or a gift.
I admire her sane and balanced point of view. God is capable of giving us visions; on the other hand, the brain itself is inconceivably complex, and capable of engendering convincingly fantastic other worlds.
But I want to ask the doctrinaire atheists this question: why and how would unaided materialistic evolution -— you know, that mechanistic process totally defined by survival and reproductive fitness -— have given us such powerful, apparently otherworldly, perceptions, capacities, and drives?
I ask you.
Just what I was thinking. Where does this guy get off claiming he was in the afterlife when wasn’t dead? After-life..What does that word imply? Oh yes.. dead. Yep, I read it again...Nowhere in this article does it claim he was dead. 32 years ago I took LSD and had visions of heaven and God, but as far as I remember I wasn’t dead at the time as well.