Spirituality, Religion, Atheism and Naturalism Part 2

Here is part two of an analysis of another blog, located here, and what I think I can learn from his story, what I accept of his ideas, and where I differ.


While at Berkeley my atheism context was further molded. No longer surrounded by Catholics, I met a lot of interesting people there with a wide variety of belief systems. I quickly made a lot of new friends who were very intelligent, and some were open to discussing the nature of reality. I think my Catholic upbringing was like a coiled spring — as soon as I left behind the environment that kept the spring coiled, I immediately shot to the other end of the spectrum. But I went way too far with it. I not only shed my old religious beliefs, but along with it went my whole concept of morality.

This paragraph is one of the reasons I respect this blogger. He is able to admit, as many aren't (and I know from other posts what he believes now), that he shot to the other end of the spectrum.' In his case, he cites morality, and in other cases I see, it's a devotion to naturalism that goes from healthy and scientific to ideological and scientistic. 

As he admits in the paragraph above, his entire concept of morality vanished. It didn't have to, but in his case, it did. And he goes on to describe in detail his newfound addiction to shoplifting, drinking, drugs, and his time in jail that changes his outlook on life. Upon leaving jail, he is a blank slate, for the most part. 

I knew I had a lot of personal rebuilding to do, but I also knew that I couldn’t go backwards. The morals and beliefs by which I was raised were broken, but living without a sense of conscience clearly wasn’t an option. Was a belief in God required to live by a code of ethics? I became aware that despite how negative my experiences seemed, they forever changed me in a good way too. By going through those experiences, I had unlocked access to a part of myself that was previously dormant — my courage.

He goes on to talk about his years in college, and how, with his new outlook on life, his hunger, he gets amazing grades in college, all the while taking an obscene number (31) of credits a semester. 

This experience gave me a deeper appreciation of the power of context. I would not have even attempted such a thing as a Catholic. I would never have set the goals I did. I’m not sure anyone can truly understand how different reality seems from the perspective of different contexts if you’ve never switched contexts. If you subscribe to a disempowering context, you may be absolutely crippled in your ability to effectively tackle certain challenges no matter how hard you try (if you even try at all).

A great point made here is that it's difficult to understand different contexts if one hasn't switched contexts at all. It aligns with something I feel, and that is, some of the most insightful material is from people who have been in a naturalistic worldview, only to switch to a theistic worldview (C.S. Lewis, Antony Flew, Edward Feser, Jime's blog, etc). I'm sure it works the other way too, and in fact, if many atheists are from religious households, than I imagine it would.

Over the next decade I experimented with agnosticism, various new-agey belief systems, Buddhism, objectivism, and more. I even tried Scientology for a few months just to see what it was like. I wanted to assimilate a variety of different contexts, experience them from the inside, and then back off and compare their strengths and weaknesses. This produced a lot of instability in my life but also tremendous growth.

The last sentence is key. By allowing oneself to doubt, to question, it enables the growth that can be very fulfilling. It ties back into experiencing different contexts. While I would say that I, more-or-less, lived like an atheist for a while, reading atheist material, atheist opinions and stories, I feel I have experienced that worldview as well to a certain extent.

Our beliefs act as lenses. These lenses can help us see things we can’t otherwise see, but they can also block us from seeing parts of reality. I see a huge part of personal development as the study of these lenses — these belief systems. There are an infinite number of lenses, so the quest never ends, but the more lenses you examine personally, the more you understand about the nature of reality and your role within it.

Fantastic.

However, here is where it gets a bit sloppy, and where I have to disagree with conclusion.

As a result of this introspection, I was able to shed certain beliefs and strengthen others. Some beliefs I found consistently disempowering, meaning that if I adopted them, I would be denying myself access to valuable potential. These included the belief in heaven/hell and the belief in a higher power. That second one may seem surprising, but I opted to let it go because I consistently found it less empowering than a belief in a lower power. An example of a higher power would be a consciously aware God or gods such as found in Christianity or Greek mythology. 

My overall religion has effectively become a religion of personal growth. Every year I continue to tweak my beliefs to try to bring them into closer alignment with my best understanding of how reality actually works. The better we understand reality, the more potential we unlock. Just as understanding a new law of physics can allow us to do things we could never previously do, beliefs about reality work the same way. If you’re stuck with a belief in a flat earth, it’s going to limit your potential actions and results. Similarly, if your religious beliefs are too great a mismatch for actual reality, you’ll be doomed to spend your life only tapping a fraction of your true potential. In my “religion,” knowingly leaving my potential untapped is sinful. Personal optimization is deeply embedded into my sense of morality. Not growing is morally wrong to me — it runs contrary to my understanding of the purpose of life.

In the first paragraph, the author talks about how he would choose his beliefs on whether or not he found them empowering in his life, which he also sums up in the first sentance of paragraph two. Choosing one's beliefs for pragmatic reasons is certainly no new concept, but it is one that I can't agree should be a driving force. One is free to choose their beliefs based on what they believe constitutes personal growth, but there is an obvious disconnect between pragmatic beliefs and truth. He mentions how he tweaks his beliefs to how he best understands reality to work, but the two will only work if the truth, in fact, leads to personal growth. If it does, than his search is actually for the truth, not beliefs that lead to empowerment. If this connection is made, I will be on board, because I (at least try) to orient my quest around what best explains reality, and what I believe to be true, and if the truth doesn't lead to 'empowerment,' then so be it. But if one orients their quest around empowering beliefs, I see no reason why true beliefs would not be discarded for false ones. If you find belief in heaven and hell disempowering, and chose not to accept them, so be it, but this has no bearing on whether or not they exist or not. 

This is more complicated when one considers the subjective nature of 'personal growth.' My idea of personal growth is determined by my worldview, not the other way around. But this does not seem to be the way he navigates his life, and I find that to be backwards. He seems to be saying he accepts beliefs based on whether he sees growth, but what constitutes growth unless it is rooted in his/her worldview? My idea of growth is very spiritual, because I believe spirituality to be an incredibly real, and tangible thing. But if you deny this, then personal growth could be wealth, or fame, or relationships. I find the way he arrives at his conclusion to be muddy at best, backwards at worst. 

Actions, not words, reveal beliefs. If you want to understand what you truly believe, observe your actions. This may take some courage to do, but if you follow the trail of your actions, it will lead you to a more congruent belief system. And once there you can begin consciously moving towards new beliefs that empower you, while your actions and beliefs remain congruent along the way. 

Good point, one where Christians should perhaps take the hit. If one accepts God with his words but denies him with every breath he takes, what does that make him? To me, it brings up images of the pharisees. I've always had problems with believing that 'faith' not 'works' leads to salvation. But what is faith without the action that shows faith is genuine? 

It might seem questionable why I like this blog, at all, since he seems to have very different beliefs than I do. Furthermore, I haven't talked at all about the distinction between spirituality and religion. Well, I'll just say he has a section on 'Spirituality' which has over 100 posts, most of them since the entry I have recapped in this post, as well as in part one. He seems to have found truth, or empowerment, in spirituality, and he talks in many entries about his certainty in life after death, and his mediumship experiences. I have done little as way of research in mediumship, but I fully believe it's possible, especially with the case for the afterlife as strong as it is. This shift leads me to believe that an honest truth seeker (and apparently one interested in empowerment, as a driving factor) can land on spirituality as truth. He also epitomizes many of my feelings about seeking the truth, even if I find his methodology questionable. He has another post on ten reasons why not to join a religion, so while he seems to still be strongly against organized religion, I think it's obvious why, given his mindset, he feels so against it (also, from reading this entry, it's mostly weak rationale, falsehoods, and unsophisticated theology - I'll comment on this entry in another post). 

I think this story shows a lot of key points. It shows how many atheists are formed, and the rationale behind the decision. It shows what truth-seeking can lead to (doubt), and how it can eventually lead to growth. While I value growth, as he does, it takes a backseat to truth, mainly because growth is dependent upon what I perceive the truth to be. If I don't have those standards in place, I can never assess my growth in the first place. But overall, I admire his journey, and I enjoy many of his statements about beliefs, which I couldn't have said better myself.

Spirituality, Religion, Atheism and Naturalism Part 1

Recently, I've been doing some thinking about the relationship between spirituality and religion. If you were to draw a Venn Diagram with 'Religion' in one circle and 'Spirituality' in the other, at what points would the two meet? Where would they differ? Is religion just spirituality institutionalized? Or are they all just false?

The more I learn, about myself, how I believe the world to be like, how I believe God to be like, the more I find myself drifitng away from organized religion, and I find myself more drawn towards labeling myself as 'Spiritual.' Throughout my searching, my belief in the supernatural, whether it be God, the spirit, or the afterlife, have all been strengthened immensly. However, I've also found myself less drawn to the church for Sunday morning worship.

I most certainly have no animus towards religion, and I find much spiritual growth from reading the Bible, and I find a lot of historicity in  Jesus Christ - and on that last point I would differ from many people, like the example blog I'll bring up. Perhaps, in short, I can say it best that I find some of the doctrine emphasized in the church to be wrong, or at the very least overemphasized, and have disagreements about some of religions side-effects.

In some ways, it reminds me several articles I read months ago. A quote by Stephen Prothero, from God is Not Great, says:

"If you let the concept of God float a little bit, almost everybody is theist."

The above could be taken in several ways, but one way to look at this is the notion that religion seems to have a claim on what characteristics 'God' holds, and perhaps more importantly, in what ways he should be worshiped. It also makes me think of Anne Rice, who, fed up with her congregation, announced she was through with Christianity, but still regards her relationship with Christ as the most important aspect of her life. It makes one wonder - what constitutes being a Christian? 

I want to analyze a blog I stumbled across today, one that is apparently pretty well-known, and look at this man's story, as well as another post or two from his blog. He brings up a lot of good points, some that I think religion should accept in stride. He also has other thoughts, that i'll try to point out, where I think he is simply mistaken. In seeking the truth, one should be open to hearing the views of others. If one is grounded in their worldview, then analyzing others should be a beneficial exercise. So here we go, and if you want to look at the full text, here is the mans overall bio. He starts out his blog talking about worldviews, and then moves into the specifics of his life, and then the implications.

I will title this part of the summary: The Birth of an Atheist

What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Is there a God or isn’t there, and if there is a God, what is its nature? Of all the world’s religions, which one is the most correct? Is there an afterlife? Are we primarily physical beings or spiritual beings?

The way we answer these questions will provide the ultimate context for everything else we do with our lives. If we place any value on our lives at all, we must give some consideration to these questions.

I couldn't agree more. I urge my volleyball group to ask the tough questions, and to seek the truth, and try and ask the tough questions. It goes back to philosophy, which gives one the tools to attempt to tackle these difficult questions, and look at areas where others have tried as well.

The next part of the story is very significant, as it can epitomize how many atheists are formed.

For the first half of my life, until the age of 17, I was Catholic/Christian, baptized and confirmed. I went through eight years of Catholic grammar school followed by four years of Catholic high school. I was a boy scout for several years and earned the Ad Altare Dei award. I prayed every day and accepted all that I was taught as true. I went to Church every Sunday with my family. All of my friends and family were Christian, so I knew nothing of other belief systems. My father was an altar boy when he was young, and his brother (my uncle) is a Catholic priest. One of my cousins is a member of Campus Crusade for Christ. In high school I went to optional religious retreats and did community service, both at a convalescent home and at a preschool for children with disabilities. I expected to be Catholic for life.

It's important to note that he was brought up very religious, and, I can only assume, fundamentalist leaning. His family sounds about as religious as they come, and his upbringing sets the stage for the retreat his life takes.

But near the end of my junior year of high school, I went through an experience that I’d have to describe as an awakening. It was as if a new part of my brain suddenly switched on, popping me into a higher state of awareness. Perhaps it was just a side effect of the maturation process. I began to openly question the beliefs that had been conditioned into me since childhood. Blind acceptance of what I was taught wasn’t enough for me anymore. I wanted to go behind the scenes, uproot any incongruencies, and see if these beliefs actually made sense to me. I started raising a lot of questions but found few people would honestly discuss them. Most simply dismissed me or became defensive. But I was intensely curious, not hostile about it. My family was closed to discussing the whole thing.

A very natural reaction to growing up. At some point, mans rationality continues to grow to the point where 'blind acceptance' or 'following the herd' is not good enough. If one is raised in a strict religious household, then, as Eric Reitan points out on his blog, it is much easier to go from one God to no God, then it is to go from one God to a more pluralistic sense of religious purpose. Often, atheism is a knee-jerk reaction to this 'maturation' that takes place in the teenage years.

I was disappointed though. What I found was that regardless of their education and their much greater life experience, very few of my friends and teachers ever bothered to question their beliefs openly. And that really gave me a huge shot of doubt. I thought, “If everyone is just accepting all of this blindly and no one is even questioning it, why should I believe it?” Over a period of months the doubt only grew stronger, and I transferred more of my faith from my Catholic upbringing to my own intelligence and senses. Eventually I just dropped the whole context entirely, and in the absence of any other viable contexts to choose from, I became an atheist.

It is very sad indeed when churchgoers either shy away from defense of their faith, or lack the knowledge of why they believe what it is they believe entirely. Obviously, as I've found out, some of the most intelligent, and this is important, intellectually honest, people I've read are theists, so I most certainly do not accept that the belief in God is unfounded, as our blogger seems to imply at this point. But as you can see, if people are not around a youngster who questions their faith to help them understand it better, or if, in my opinion, he is brought up in too fundamentalist of a household, the reaction is often atheism.

It reminds me of C.S. Lewis, who, when he converted to atheism as a teenager, remembers being mad at God that he didn't actually exist.

Having shed all my old beliefs, I felt like my brain had gotten an intelligence upgrade. 

And here, stated baldly, we see something that permeates atheism itself. That is, of course, a sense of superiority over the 'dumb, religious believers,' who don't know why they do what they do.

My family was not happy about all this, especially when my subscription to American Atheist magazine started coming in the mail (I got good at intercepting the mail early). But I was doing so well in school that it was hard for them to complain, and they didn’t want to openly address any of my questions, even though I’d have been happy to do so. They did force me to keep going to church though, which I tolerated for a while because I knew I’d be moving out in a year anyway. But eventually I started sitting in a different part of the church and would sneak out the back and go for a walk and return just before it ended. But one time the mass ended earlier than expected, and I got back too late. My family was already at the car and saw me walking down the street. Whoops! They drove off without me. But instead of walking the two miles home, I stayed out the entire day and didn't return until midnight. Aside from weddings and funerals, that was the last time I ever went to church.

He also goes on to talk about how he became much better at school when he dropped his religious beliefs. He started to get amazing grades, and from this we can see another theme in this man, and that is the affirmation that the beliefs one holds will directly effect the outcome, and, 'successfulness' of your life. I put 'successfulness' in quotes not only because it's not a word, according to spell-check, but because 'successfulness' is obviously so subjective that it's almost laughable.

The main purpose of this background though, is to see how, and I believe this is the typical case, an atheist is formed. Also note this - does he at any point give a rational argument for why atheism is correct? No - it's just assumed that because he finds religious doctrine silly, then there is no God. There are more steps than that in the thought process, but nowhere in his testimony does he give a reason for his disbelief, other than the fact that he did better in school when he stopped believing in God, and because those around him had no answers. 

But this is just silly, in my opinion. I doubt my parents could have rattled off reason upon reason to believe in God, but I figured this might be the case, and I went out and found literature, found resources, found other believers that did do a significant deal of searching. To take a sample size of several, and draw a worldview based on that is rather weak, so I would assert that his initial justification for atheism is at the best, very weak. As far as his better grades, I'm sure one could delve deeper into this, but at face value, it's obvious that in no way does 'better grades' or a 'feeling of intelligence' mean you have discovered truth. But this leads us to a deeper distinction, and that is whether 'empowerment' can entail 'truth' and vice versa, and if his understanding that beliefs that empower are keepers is justified.

Argument from Mystical Experience

"What if you slept, and what if in your sleep you dreamed,

and what if in your dream you went to heaven

and there you plucked a strange and beautiful flower,

and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?"

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Although I have yet to formulate an argument based around what I find to be the most compelling lines of evidence for the soul, and then theism, I would say I find Arguments from Mystical Experiences to be convincing. Now, I'm not saying that all 'mystical' experiences are true. In fact, I am hesitant when mystical experiences are brought up too often in the church setting. Claiming divine intervention on healing is a bold claim, and I think for a skeptical audience member, this might seem as if they are trying to postulate a 'Healing of the Gaps' argument for divine intervention.


So what exactly is a mystical experience? I would consider the following lines of research 'mystical' in nature:


- Evidence of Near-Death Experiences
- Evidence for deathbed visions
- Evidence for Reincarnation
- Evidence for mediumship


Other lines of research that would seem to undermine naturalism are evidence for telepathy, clairvoyance, healing powers, psychic powers, etc.


How about this:


1. If naturalism is true, then all mystical experiences would be explainable in naturalistic terms.
2. Not all mystical experiences can be explained in naturalistic terms.
Therefore:
3. Naturalism is false
And, for me:
4. The best explanation for these lines of evidence is the existence of an entity separate from our physical bodies, an immaterial 'thing.'
5. The best explanation for this 'separate entity' or 'soul,' 'mind,' or 'spirit' is the existence of a God capable of creating such an entity (Another rationale behind this is that if we accept the evidence for verdical experiences as authentic, then we have no reason not believe the rest of the standard NDE - namely that God, or 'The Light' exists, and there is an afterlife).


It's pretty clear that the above argument begs the question at premise two, so the only way to accept (2) is to decide if the evidence is explainable in naturalistic terms. I say it cannot be. If one takes a step back and acknowledges that there is, at the very least, evidence, in all the above areas, it's easy to say that we should only expect this type of evidence if naturalism were false.


In order to accept premise (2), however, one has to do some research on the matter, and no example given in this space could suffice for what thousands of pages of NDE research could accomplish. It's not very hard to find information on the matter, as many of the top experts on NDE's have moved past whether they are authentic or not, and have moved towards understanding their implications. So, needless to say, there are many books on the matter that revolve around their authenticity, and for the skeptic, those should be the ones to debunk.

Reductionism

Does reductionism collapse into eliminative materialism?

I tend to think it does. In fact, I think reductionism is somewhat incoherent, maybe because the concept of 'reduction' is an odd one. I'll try to illustrate:

If A=B, then B=A

If A reduces to B, it is not necessarily the case that B reduces to A.

The reductionist will say that we have mental states, but what they really are are brain states. Or, mental states exist, but they reduce to the physical. Let's take an example:

Say I look at a lightning bolt and I identify it as a lightning bolt. Now, that lightning bolt, I am told, can be reduced to a group of electrons. However, reduction does not go both ways. It doesn't make sense to say that electrons are reducable to a lightning bolt. So reduction says that while A can reduce to B, it may not be the case that B is reducable to A, which is why I say it seems incoherent.

 If I say that a lightning bolt is reducable to electron motion, then what there actually is is the electron motion. There is no actual lightning bolt outside the existence of this electron motion. It would be the case that A=B. Since the lightning bolt is only electrons, then there is only electron motion. 

Now move to the case of the mind. The reductionist says there are mental states, but they reduce to the physical. But if A reduces to B, then only B exists, and there is no A. And since materialists insist that this 'A' be physical in nature, then there I say there can be no mental states. If A=B, then A and B share all the same properties, but it's obvious that mental and physical events don't share all the same properties. 

This is why, amongst other reasons, I think reductionism of the mind moves towards eliminative materialism, and that is a slippery slope, which inevitably leads towards the denial of beliefs, truth, and the concept of self. But one can hardly make an argument for eliminative materialism without contradicting himself, if in fact it is possible. 

Qualia

How can qualia be best explained? 


Qualia is a Latin root, meaning'what sort' or 'what kind.' This type of vagueness in the definition is something that, to me, can be best grasped from approaching qualia in a different direction. 


I'm currently reading Lessons from the Light, by Kenneth Ring, where he describes a patient who experienced a NDE who was blind from birth. It's difficult for us seeing folk to understand what being blind from birth would actually be like, but in hearing this woman's account, something became clear that should have been obvious to me. This patient, Vicki, remembers floating out of her body and experiencing the hospital room - actually seeing it. She then floated out of the hospital, and looked around at the city of Concord, where she was hospitalized. After this, she was shot through a tunnel, and the rest of her experience (actually, the entire thing), is like most other NDE's. What's interesting, and separates Vicki's account from others, is that she remembers seeing blood gushing out of body, but was unable to describe the color of the blood. It brings about the interesting concept of trying to describe a color without calling it the color itself, or relating it to another color. If you could use neither of these two things, how would you describe the 'redness' of blood?


There is a difference between colors, in this sense, and say, a book. If I am blind, I could still understand the concepts of 'smooth' and 'thin' and 'rectangular.' I feel the outline of a book, and I am told it is rectangular in its nature. I am told it's pages are thing. But how would I have the cover of the book, an illustration, described to me in colors?


Colors are a good example of qualia - especially obvious in relation to blind people. Vicki was able to recognize 'buildings' and 'rooms' and 'doctors' because she has heard them, and most importantly, felt them. She was able to recognize these things because she experiences them on a day-to-day basis, and upon actually seeing them, relate these experiences she has had to her new-found visual perception. 


The problem with color, is that we only know color through relations. How can a blind person, who is able to see, understand color without it being related? If I see the world 'red' next to the color I perceive as red, I have then grasped the concept of 'red.' Or, in Vicki's case, if she is pushed to answer what color the blood was, she could say 'Well, it was the same color as a stop sign." But Vicki obviously, has no idea of what a stop sign being red actually means. She knows what a stop sign is, and she probably knows they are red, but the concept of 'redness' she is told to associate with that stop sign is completely absent. 


And this brings us, I think, closer to seeing how qualia can be a problem for a materialist conception of the mind. If our mind can be reduced to the physical firing of neurons, in what sense could the firing of neurons ever amount to a color? In this sense, colors seem to be irreducible in nature. No doubt, our brains may have neurons associated with certain colors, but in what sense would these neuronal firings ever amount to 'blueness.' It could be argued that we only experience colors through objects, and when we imagine redness, we only imagine the redness insofar as we see a red object. But what Vicki's story shows us, is that only someone who is able to relate a stop sign to blood, and call the two red, must have an objective color in mind when they call the two red. 

Book Review: The Light Beyond by Raymond Moody

Summary:


Raymond Moody is known as the first person to really spend time investigating the phenomena that is the NDE. It seems fair to say that the NDE has gain widespread knowledge (and that's debatable), in the recent past. Moody wrote Life after Life in in the 70's, and since then, many other researchers have taken to looking deeper at the NDE. At the time, Moody had no idea how widespread the NDE was, and he also had no idea how much of a fascination it would stir. Moody mentions many times in The Light Beyond that we are naturally fascinated as to what happens after we die - and the stories we hear from these people are a potential glimpse into that reality. 


Unlike Carter, Moody spends much less time speaking of naturalist interpretations of the NDE, but spends more time speaking about the impact the NDE has on the experiencers life. Moody expresses his personal opinion that while science may not have verified the NDE to the extent many people would like, he feels that the experience is legitimate. He is especially effected by the enormous impact it has on these peoples lives, and like many other researches, finds a certain 'high' from hearing these stories, and sharing in their new-found enthusiasm. He also feels that the verified out of body experiences that these people have had led him to believe the stories these people bring back are authentic.


It's interesting that these experiences have become much more prevalent over recent years, and once could interpret it several ways. Moody talks about times before his book Life after Life, and how Near-Death Experiencers were often told they were 'crazy,' and should just forget about what they claimed to have experienced. These people really needed someone to talk to, someone who understood what this experience is like, and the first wave of NDE researchers were able to provide these people with that support and attention. One of the big factors towards the prevalence of the NDE is the advance in modern medicine, and in particular, better resuscitation techniques. People are brought back much more frequently from the brink of death - and the advent of these advances is most likely a significant factor, as Moody thinks. Another potential reason could be the globalization of society. As the globe has become connected, its has become easier to see just how prevalent these experiences are, turning the NDE something that happened to a person or two you knew, to millions of people nationwide, according to a Gallup poll taken around the time of Life after Life. With the help of Moody and other researchers, people no longer feel scorned when they have these experiences, or embarrassed. Thus, one could attribute some of the influx of NDE's to this research, and how in Moody's opinion, people who were hiding this experience no longer felt that was necessary. Also, as Dr. Kenneth Ring has suggested, some NDE'ers think that these experiences are becoming more prevalent in recent years due to an attempt of the spirit world to make itself known. There is a wave of secularization that is taking hold, and this may be an attempt by this otherworld to add some fuel to a religious revival. 


Whatever reason you feel is behind this new study, it's undebated that they have become a new, popular, phenomenon in recent years, and they certainly add some of the best evidence that consciousness can, in fact, survive death. 


Some quotations, stories or key thoughts from The Light Beyond:


- Many NDE'ers come back with the message that the two most important things in this life are love and knowledge - and most NDE'ers more actively pursue these after their experience. These are the only things we can take with us into the afterlife.
- Moody feels, and I agree, that the skeptics serve their purpose. I find the evidence more than convincing, but without these skeptics, the investigation would not have been as thorough, and it would be hard to know just how convincing these incidents actually are.
- One man, who was angry at the person who resuscitated him, told him, 'I was mad because you brought me back to death instead of life.'
- One woman went to the waiting room during her OBE, to see her daughter wearing mismatching plaids. The maid, who brought the daughter, said she just grabbed the first two things she saw in their rush to get to the hospital.
- For those who have been in the business of studying these experiences a while, such as Ring and Moody, they have witnessed several instances of 'foresight,' where the experiencer is able to experience things that will happen years in the future.
- Moody notes that in twenty years as a NDE researcher, he has yet to find a NDE that hasn't had a positive effect on the persons life.
- NDE'ers exude a 'luminous serenity' from looking into the future and knowing everything is going to be all right.
- Many people feel the life review creates a sense of responsibility in their life after their NDE. They know at some point they will have to review the actions they took in their life, only they will feel the emotions of the people they impacted. As one NDE'er commented, she doesn't fear the review, she relishes in the sense of responsibility it creates.
- Many people become more spiritual, but not more religious. They feel that at the heart of religion, if you strip away the dogma and doctrine, is the spiritual aspect that often gets overlooked.
- Experts conclude that religious background doesn't alter the core of the NDE, just the interpretation of it.
- Kids younger than seven often are less surprised by their experience, because they just assume this what happens when people die.
- NDE'ers who are handicapped are surprised to find their handicaps gone when in the spiritual realm.

Debates over Near-Death Experiences

A couple days ago, I decided to debate a guy on an atheist blog about the actuality of the Near-Death Experience. It's been a fairly civil discussion thus far - although he's starting to repeat some of the same points, and continues to leave out some of the most valuable evidence regarding the Near-Death Experience. He has yet to respond to my last post -  and I have a feeling he will resort to sophism and personal attacks pretty soon. The rate at which he makes 'blanket statements' about NDE's is becoming more frequent, leading me to believe he's getting frustrated. Here are some of the points he made regarding the NDE, and some of my responses. His initials are 'AA,' so that's what I'll call him here.


AA: The fact that the NDE experience varies per culture goes against the actuality of the Near-Death Experience.


My Response: First, AA continues to believe that the differences are far greater than they actually are. In doing research, it is really only Hindu's that tend to see things other than the standard elements of the NDE. Across North America, Europe, and China, the NDE is very consistent with it's core elements.


Even if we said there were differences - let us first examine the core experience, which usually involves a tunnel, life review, seeing a light, etc. The problem with saying it's a cultural phenomenon where people see what their culture's perception of death is, is that this doesn't match any preconceived notions of death people would have. He implies that it corresponds to religion, but nowhere in the Bible, that I know of, does it speak of us having an OBE, and hovering over our bodies after death, nor having a life-review, nor passing through a tunnel. Even the depiction of heaven given in revelation is far different than the typical NDE account. 


The only thing that could be said about the NDE is that it's depiction of death is created by the NDE itself - but it's well known that persons who have not heard of the NDE are just as likely to experience it as those who haven't. It's also notoriously independent of religion, age, gender, and race (Ring, p.18). Even if many concessions are made, regarding the core experience of the NDE as a cultural phenomenon simply doesn't fit the evidence. Naturally - we can only expect some people to see different things, and interpret things based on their culture, but again, to claim it as a cultural phenomenon does not coincide with the evidence.


AA: Persons, like test pilots, sometimes experience OBE's, and other similar aspects of the NDE when not near-death. This is something the afterlife theory cannot account for.


My Response: The afterlife theory supposes that there is a 'spirit' or 'essence' that resides in our body, that detaches itself upon death. Obviously, this involves the assumption that the mind and body are separate entities. But if this is the case - we can expect our 'spirit' to leave our body in times when it perceives danger, but are not actually 'near death.' In fact - some people who have NDE's report leaving their body before actually undergoing biological death, like in the case of drowning. They report they sensed they were about to die, and left their body without having to experience the trouble of dying. 


What I'm curious, is how does this fit into the dying brain hypothesis? If the brain is not 'dying,' then it should not be experiencing this separation if the explanation is of the physiological sort. 


Other reasons why a physiological explanation is lacking, without resorting to individual problems with each theory:


-Take for the example, the tunnel. Some people experience a tunnel, some a door, some a staircase, some simply crossing a dark plain to the other realm. If a physiological explanation we're occurring, we should expect uniformity. How could a physiological explanation account for the broad aspect of 'crossing into another realm?'
- Whatever the explanation is - it must be utterly convincing, to the point where people are convinced beyond a doubt what they experienced was real. NDE's are able to decipher between these 'hallucinations' and their actual NDE.


Other points I have been making since the beginning, that he continues to ignore:

- Verified 'verdical' experiences (I can't fault him too much for this, because the only book he read is 25 years old, and is about the only materialist account available to explain away the NDE. Since this book has been written, many more corroborated 'verdical' experiences have been confirmed, which the author of the before mentioned book ignores - and later admits - are inexplicable)
- Significantly more cases where are not verified by hospital personnel, yet are reported by researchers such as Kenneth Ring and Raymond Moody in their books.
- Even more cases which patients claim to witness conversations remote from their body, which are later told to their family, which of course amazes them.
- Evidence for Death-Bed visions
- Evidence of 'foresight' reported by researchers (this evidence is weird stuff!).
- Many of the books on the subject are written by people who go into the NDE as actual 'skeptics,' only to change their mind, believing it can't be accounted for in naturalistic terms. Typically, only those who go in with the agenda to create a materialistic account (like Blackmore fully admits in her book) write negatively against the NDE.


As I continue to say, the explanatory scope is just not there for any competing theory, whether it be psychological or physiological. There are good reasons to reject other explanations, and the only theory that can account for verdical experiences is the afterlife theory. I'm going to continue to find atheists, and see if they can actually justify their claims that the NDE, and afterlife evidence in general, can be accounted for in naturalistic terms.