Is death the end? Or do we continue in some form after death? To start I'll provide a link to Kevin Williams' site, which in my opinion is the best NDE study site on the Net.

http://www.near-death.com/index.html

And a random sample from one NDE (excerpts):


Quote:

My near-death experience shattered my world. It shook me into remembering spirit and other dimensions of life, which I had known as a child but had forgotten so that I could fit into society..... I see family members at the foot of my bed through a haze. Suddenly they disappear. From where they stood I see faces rushing toward me with incredible speed. They race toward my face, expanding then dissolving. Face after face washes over me! I am terrified. I'm drifting. I'm unable to keep my eyes open. Who are these people? Some I recognize as people I've known who have died. Others I do not recognize..... Now – I am filled with the essence of love and compassion. This magnetic power is filling every atom of me. I have never before experienced such depth and power of love. I am the power of love! Merging into an intimate dance wherein all boundaries have disappeared, I feel myself one with these beings of compassion. No words or sounds are being exchanged, and yet communication is happening. A strong presence assures me, "Yes, you are dying to the world of men. But to us you are being born. Do not be afraid. You have always been with us; we have always been with you. We know you. You just fell asleep during your time on earth and forgot who you are. Now you are remembering........" I feel compassion beyond words. I understand everything, but I have no feeling of attachment to anyone. I look at each person standing at the bedside and feel tremendous love.I want to say to them, "I'm all right. You don't have to worry. I'm all right. Look at me! I'm fine!" I am melting into the universe. I am everywhere at once. I see pulsing light everywhere. Such a loving presence envelops me! I hear a voice say, "Life is a precious gift: to love, to care, to share." "This is the world with the absence of light, love, and free will," the voice states. "It is the people's choices that created the world you have just seen." "From the light we have come, and to the light we all shall return," continues the voice. "From the light we have come, and to the light we shall all return," repeats the voice. Such a warm feeling of peace! I am complete – whole! I am free of pain and fear. There is no past or future – everything is! There is no need to speak to be understood or to communicate. I feel serenity beyond anything I have ever known.

Full Story

This of course is one of thousands of similar anecdotes, experiences most of us would probably equate with fantasy, but to the people who have experienced the NDE it's as real, some say more real, than life itself. Contrary to some opinion, nothing has conclusively been established regarding NDEs by science. Even the great skeptic, Dr. Susan Blackmore (her website: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/ ) admitted before her retirement that "it might all be true", though in her strong opinion it's brain-induced (Blackmore didn't actually have an NDE, but an OBE, or our-of-body experience, while she was under the influence of marijuana).

The other question is: If true, how do NDEs relate to religion? NDErs tend to believe more in universalism than orthodox religions with doctrines of heaven and hell, and "everlasting punishment". How does this affect mainstream religion? Could the NDE phenomenon provide a more meaningful avenue for universal understanding rather than religious exclusivism?

I have my own opinions, but perhaps you'd like to share yours first.

Ray_A - gidday.
I believe there is much more to life than the pure physical world we are in.
Almost everyone has had an (if not many) spiritual experiences.

Although I have not had a NDE experience, I have had an experience of ....."I have never before experienced such depth and power of love." as is in your article.
Life changing.

Take care

By the way, Sprint, I'm not anti-religion, just in case you may have thought that. My studies have just taken me "beyond religion".

My own opinion of NDE's is that they are almost certainly as a result of a massive influx of chemicals to the brain immediately preceding death. Here is an interesting link:

http://psychicdeli.googlepages.com/inducingnear-deathexperienceswithchemica

Now if the NDE is not due to the chemicals which should and have been proven to cause such experiences, how do you separate the non chemical part of the experience from the chemical part that we know should occur? Let's face it - Isn't it just wishful thinking?

Let's put it this way - what do you think could survive? The personality? Well all the serious studies that have ever been done show that malfunctions of the brain can cause personality disorders. You can even correct many personality disorders using chemicals. When the brain dies, the illusion of consciousness dies with it. Think about before you were born. That's what it will be like after you die. It's not particularly scary once you come to terms with it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm quite a spiritual person, if spiritual is the appropriate term. I'm not a totally logical computer. None of us are. We evolved by a process of survival of the fittest.  This is evident in structures such as the appendix, as well as the capability of the renal system to process much more liquid than is necessary for a land-based animal.  Our brains must have incorporated similar 'evolutionary brick walls', and our perception is not always a perfect mirror of reality.

One of the things that really makes my spine tingle, is the sight of a really dark starlit sky in the bush. In modern society, we are too cluttered. Our mobile phones go off all the time, and we never get time to feel bored, and never get time to really appreciate the universe that we are a part of.

In simpler times, things were different. I think the original writers and raconteurs who came up with the Holy books were trying to convey that sense of stillness. That message became corrupted, and nowadays in our city lives, we don't stand a chance of regaining the original message.

Everything changes, everything passes,
Things appearing, things disappearing.
But when all is over - everything having appeared and disappeared,
Being and extinction both transcended.
Still the basic emptiness and silence abides,
And that is blissful peace

(The prologue to the Diamond Sutra)

I'm not a Buddhist, but the same concept is to be found in many religions.

Come to terms with the emptiness and the vastness of space. If you're searching for the truth, stop searching, find a quiet spot and a few spare hours.  The truth is obvious, but modern life is too busy to see the obvious.

wrote on Feb 18^th, 2008 at 3:49pm:

Now if the NDE is not due to the chemicals which should and have been proven to cause such experiences, how do you separate the non chemical part of the experience from the chemical part that we know should occur? Let's face it - Isn't it just wishful thinking?

Wishful thinking is that there are easy answers to this phenomenon. I'm open to all points of view.
Blind people who've had NDEs reported seeing, for the first time, and giving accurate descriptions of what they saw.

Have a look at this link, and let me know what you think: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html

Some more to digest for debate:


Quote:

4. Cases of the blind who can see: As recorded by Kenneth Ring in his book, Mind Sight, there is solid evidence for 31 cases in which blind people report visually accurate information obtained during an NDE. Addressing the frequent rejoinder that such events can be accounted for as hallucinations, Greyson noted that: 1. If these are hallucinations, then how is that such incredibly accurate and verifiable information is resulting from the NDEs? 2. People on drugs who have NDEs see fewer deceased relatives when they travel out of body. This suggests that people who do see relatives are clear-minded, not hallucinating. 3. People see deceased but not living relatives in their NDEs. In some cases of children, they see dead relatives whom they had never met or seen pictures of. How could they hallucinate accurately the visual images of someone they have never met? Greyson concluded by briefly noting how we might design a good NDE study. He suggested that we first need to target populations that are likely to have them, such as hypothermic circulatory arrest patients, and then set up specific visual targets in the hospital room that can be clearly identified. Furthermore, Greyson added that a good physiological apparatus should be set up to measure what is happening in the person’s body during the NDE. When assessing the surmounting data as a whole, Greyson said that the survival hypothesis is the most parsimonious explanation for the growing database of near-death experiences.

http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=9&pageid=95&pgtype=1

This is an unanswered question:


Quote:

People see deceased but not living relatives in their NDEs. In some cases of children, they see dead relatives whom they had never met or seen pictures of. How could they hallucinate accurately the visual images of someone they have never met?

Another link to consider: http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html

Interesting. Of course any memory changes every time we revisit it. This is quite unintentional. We also use perceptions to prop up and reinforce our worldviews.

A born again Christian would have a very different NDE from say a Buddhist, because they have different expectations. Near death, you will experience what you expect to experience. Brilliant lights are associated with temporal lobe transients. A Christian might see this as some kind of portal to heaven.

The experiences a person would encounter under these circumstances would be confusing enough. If they had a feeling that they were going to see dead relatives, they probably would have this illusion, and when they come to process this information on recovery, all kinds of embellishments to the memory would occur, in order to make sense out of an experience the person did not understand.

I'll try to find the research on out of body experiences too. Good artists are very skilled at perceiving things from a different angle. We are all capable of doing it, because we have to rely on an 'electronic' version of reality, because we just can't perceive reality quickly enough to understand everything real time. We work 95% of  our lives time on 'autopilot', so perceiving spacial data that is outside our normal field of vision comes naturally to us. I could also tell you about medical conditions where people are unable to see part of their bodies - the arm might just disappear below the elbow. There is nothing supernatural about it. It can be corrected by electrically killing a few brain cells.

Blind people tend to reassign the visual cortex for other purposes, particularly their other senses. It's quite common for a blind person to say "I can't see a thing". many people who have their sight restored after a lifetime of blindness report that it takes some time for them to make something  of their newly acquired sense. The visual cortex has been wired to other senses and it takes some time to 'reprogram'.

The term 'hallucinate accurately' is an oxymoron. It doesn't make sense. You can't hallucinate anything accurately and you can't recount a hallucination very accurately either. So  there is no accurate data to check. Showing a sick kid a picture of dead Uncle Jo and getting a nod does not constitute accurate checking of data. It's a nice story that we may want to believe, but that's as far as it goes.

Here's a link to Out of Body experiences caused by stimulation of the angular gyrus in the right cortex:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2266740.stm

Another link:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19225731.300-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel.html

Thanks for those two links. I'll start with the first one:


wrote on Feb 18^th, 2008 at 11:15pm:

Here's a link to Out of Body experiences caused by stimulation of the angular gyrus in the right cortex: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2266740.stm

Quote:

Neurologist Professor Olaf Blanke and colleagues at Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland were using electrodes to stimulate the brain.... Professor Blanke told BBC News Online that out of body sensations may be caused by an overactive angular gyrus. Alternatively, the electrical stimulation might actually have depressed activity in the area. He said it was impossible to rule out possibility that other areas of the brain were also involved. He said there was no evidence to suggest that out-of-body experiences were linked to epilepsy. "OBEs have been reported in neurological patients with epilepsy, migraine and after cerebral strokes, but they also appear in healthy subjects..... When the two become dissociated, an out-body-experience may result. Writing in the journal Nature, the Swiss team said out-of-body experiences tended to be short-lived, and to disappear when a person attempts to inspect the illusory body or body part. (Emphases added)

These studies are inconclusive about the nature of NDEs. They provide insights, that's all. Being able to trigger an OBE doesn't mean they entirely brain-related.

From the second link:


Quote:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19225731.300-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel.html

Look at the article more carefully (my emphases added):


Quote:

For Joe his near-death experience (NDE) was a very real preview of what is in store for him after death. Science has a different take: NDEs are real, but they have nothing to do with the afterlife. Instead, they are illusions created by a fading brain. But despite numerous attempts, no one has been able to scientifically explain all the elements of an NDE. Now one researcher thinks he can.

Quote:

Although they are fairly common, near-death experiences have never been adequately explained.

Quote:

Some scientists say that they might be triggered by a hypothetical molecule called "endopsychosin" that binds to neurons and protects them from hypoxia. Others suspect that a flood of endorphins in the amygdala, a part of the brain associated with emotion, could lead to euphoria and feelings of detachment. Falling oxygen levels might also cause epilepsy-like electrical discharges in the hippocampus, which is involved in memory, leading to a rerun of life events. Activity in the amygdala might lend these visions a spiritual tint. Other observers have pointed to painkillers or anaesthetics as possible causes.

Quote:

In fact, the list of explanations goes on and on. But many of them fail to account for the whole experience and are impossible to test scientifically. Many also overlook the fact that you don't have to be at death's door to have an NDE. A study in 1990 at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center in Charlottesville of 58 people who had experienced NDEs found that half would have survived without medical care. Sometimes fainting can be enough to trigger NDE-like sensations.

Quote:

Nelson says that that's because despite the name, NDE has little to do with actually being close to death. He argues that the experience stems from an acute bout of "REM intrusion" - a glitch in the brain's circuitry that, in times of extreme stress, may flip it into a mixed state of awareness where it is both in REM sleep and partially awake at the same time. "The concept that our brain is either 100 per cent awake or 100 per cent in REM sleep is absolutely erroneous," says Mark Mahowald, a neurologist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. "We can have pieces of one state intruding into another, and that's when things get interesting."

In spite of some inconsistencies, the REM hypothesis seems to be one avenue worthy of further study. But it's not conclusive, yet:


Quote:

REM intrusion could even explain the biggest mystery of NDEs: that they seem to occur at a time when the brain is hypoxic and brainwaves recorded from the scalp are flat. "That is definitely paradoxical," says Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who has studied NDE for 30 years. "I don't see any way around this paradox except to say that either our observations of NDEs are mistaken or our models of brain and mind are inadequate."

A significant admission from Greyson, who is a member of IANDS (International Association for Near Death Studies).

Continued:

However:


Quote:

Not everyone is convinced. Greyson maintains that the protocol for Nelson's survey - recruiting NDE subjects on the internet - could have artificially elevated the frequency of REM intrusion in that group. "Those who report their NDEs on the internet may be more likely to admit to unusual things happening to them," he says. Greyson also questions the conclusion that more REM intrusion in people who have had an NDE means that the phenomenon causes NDE. "It may be more plausible," he says, "that NDEs played a role in subsequent REM intrusion." It is known, for example, that people with post-traumatic stress disorder subsequently have more frequent REM intrusion - maybe because they sleep less soundly. But "if NDE enhances subsequent REM intrusion," responds Nelson, "then that would tell me that NDE and REM are related." He believes this is a testable hypothesis and encourages other researchers to investigate.

But is it all settled?


Quote:

The definitive scientific explanation for NDEs may be a little way off, but if, as Nelson's work suggests, many of us are in line for a talk with the man in white, perhaps we should make use of the time we have left to come up with some really good questions.

I continue to follow the studies and debates with interest, though I do feel there are still too many unexplained areas. When members of IANDS admit that science has established a biological cause, then most of us can rest assured that it's a purely material phenomenon. The NDE has taken on an almost religious-like status for many, and I don't this this is helpful. On the other hand, some skeptics dismiss it all way too simplistically.

Consider this from Time:


Quote:

"There's nothing mysterious about NDEs," says Mark Mahowald, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center. "Many people want it to be a religious, paranormal or supernatural phenomenon. The fact that NDEs can be explained scientifically detracts from the mystique." The second camp is as adamant that no theory based purely on the workings of the brain can account for all elements of an NDE, and that we should consider the mind-bending possibility that consciousness can exist independent of a functioning brain, or at least that consciousness is more complex than we suppose. Though NDEs are driven in part by neurochemistry and psychology, says Auckland psychiatrist Karl Jansen, it has "underlying mechanisms in more mysterious realms that cannot currently be described."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1657919-1,00.html


Quote:

Meanwhile, University of Kentucky neurophysiologist Kevin Nelson theorizes that NDEs are what can happen when a particular sleep state intrudes on the imperiled brain. "I wouldn't say it's definitive," says Nelson. "But it's an intriguing hypothesis that answers a great deal."

Here is one of those "loopholes" inadequately explained which I mentioned:


Quote:

So what's so baffling about NDEs? We know that when a person's heart stops, the decline in brain function caused by a cut in blood supply is steep. Simultaneous recording of heart rate and brain output shows that within 11 to 20 secs. of the heart failing, the brain waves go flat. A flat electroencephalogram (EEG) recording doesn't suggest mere impairment. It points to the brain having shut down. Longtime NDE researcher Pim van Lommel, a retired Dutch cardiologist, has likened the brain in this state to a "computer with its power source unplugged and its circuits detached. It couldn't hallucinate. It couldn't do anything at all." Yet it's in this period, between switch-off and resuscitation, that many researchers believe NDEs occur.

But Nelson had another theory:


Quote:

Nelson's theory goes some way toward explaining how NDEs can seem to occur when the brain is down. The sleep/wake switch is in the brainstem, which helps control the body's most basic functions and stays active for longer than the higher brain in cardiac arrest. "It's likely that the transition to brain death is, in fact, gradual," says Mahowald, "and NDEs occur during this transition." As for people reporting accurately on events that went on around them while they were apparently unconscious, Nelson says "they may be seemingly out of it but still processing in a very aberrant way."

But:  


Quote:

Of the thousands of NDEs reported, none has done more to convince some researchers that the phenomenon's explanation must lie outside the square than the case of Pam Reynolds, an American who underwent brain surgery for an aneurysm in 1991. Preparation for Reynolds' operation included taping her eyes shut, blocking her ears and monitoring her EEG to ensure her brain was functioning at only the most basic level. Yet after coming around, Reynolds described not only a full-blown NDE but the bone saw that had been used to cut her skull.

"Aberrant"? More from Nelson:


Quote:

Happy to concede that "the brain deals with crisis in ways we don't fully understand," Nelson is keen to test his theory some more. He won't go into details, but it's believed he wants to monitor REM activity in subjects he would expect to have NDE-like symptoms in certain conditions.

Finally:

Former skeptic van Lommel:


Quote:

For many years, says cardiologist van Lommel, he was in the first camp on NDEs, sure their basis was entirely material. His interest having been pricked in the mid-'70s by the first book about NDEs, Life After Life by American doctor Raymond Moody, van Lommel in 1988 began a study that would encompass 344 survivors of cardiac arrest in 10 Dutch hospitals. Van Lommel and his co-authors wrote in The Lancet in 2001 that 18% of subjects reported some recollection of the time of clinical death, and 7% an experience that qualified as a deep NDE. The Dutch team found little about the NDErs that distinguished them as a group from those for whom clinical death was a blackout. Factors such as psychological profile, medications, religion and previous knowledge about NDEs all appeared to be irrelevant. To this day, Van Lommel can't explain why some people have NDEs and most don't. But the fact the experience isn't universal undermines, to his mind, a purely physiological explanation: if lack of oxygen were the cause of NDEs, then all survivors of cardiac arrest should have one.

His theory:


Quote:

"In my view, the brain is not producing consciousness, but it enables us to experience our consciousness," he says. He compares the brain to a television, which receives programs by decoding information from electromagnetic waves. Likewise, he says, "the brain decodes from only a part of our enhanced consciousness, which we experience as waking consciousness. But our enhanced consciousness is different, and this is what is experienced during an NDE."

Why do people have different NDEs? One possible explanation:


Quote:

Another, possibly key, point is that NDEs vary across cultures. In a soon-to-be-published review of the literature, a team of Australian researchers reports, for example, that Chinese NDEs are dominated by feelings of bodily estrangement without all the pleasant stuff, and that the Japanese see caves rather than tunnels. For co-author Mahendra Perera, a Melbourne psychiatrist, these differences don't prove that NDEs are hallucinations, only that their "final expression is colored by culture, language and learning."

Still no definite conclusions:


Quote:

Other researchers have their own ideas about how to solve the puzzle. Neuroscientist Blanke calls for "more work with imaging to investigate the brain functioning of large numbers of people who've had an NDE." Says Jansen, who'll soon release work comparing accounts of spontaneous NDEs with ketamine-induced ones: "We're moving on an exciting path. But nobody knows if we've made huge progress or just a little." On balance, it's almost certain that NDEs happen in the theater of one's mind, and that in the absence of resuscitation, it's the brain's final sound and light show, followed by oblivion. Nonetheless, there's still no definitive explanation. There mightn't be a ghost in the machine. But it's a machine whose complexities remain well beyond our grasp.

The point is that it's never going to be anything other than inconclusive. Very few things in this world are totally cut and dried, but we can still use 'working hypotheses' that work. We might not have a universal theory of everything, but we can build computers.

Sorry, but I prefer to rely on a hypothesis that can be demonstrated and that has at least some evidence in its favour rather than some airy fairy piece of religious mumbo jumbo about some ill defined thing called a soul or a spirit or mind or aura or whatever happens to be the flavour of the month, and that has absolutely no evidence in its favour.

I'm sorry, but I just have a brain in my skull. It doesn't share the space with a soul or a spirit or an aura. I just don't have the room. I can only go for my own experiences, but everything that I experience can be explained in terms of norepinephrine, melatonin, serotonin, adrenaline, cortisol etc, as well as  neural pathways between neurons and synapses which can be influenced by levels of these chemicals.

I don't drink, don't smoke or take drugs, and have an obsession with a healthy diet and lifestyle, so I personally prefer not to add ethanol, cannabis etc to that list.

I can appreciate beauty, love and 'spirituality', but recognise them for what they are.  

wrote on Feb 19^th, 2008 at 9:28am:

Sorry, but I prefer to rely on a hypothesis that can be demonstrated and that has at least some evidence in its favour rather than some airy fairy piece of religious mumbo jumbo about some ill defined thing called a soul or a spirit or mind or aura or whatever happens to be the flavour of the month, and that has absolutely no evidence in its favour.

There is a lot of evidence to be examined (and the articles made this very clear), but if you hold to the idea of "impossibles", then there's no need to apologise. A closed mind isn't only a "religious phenomenon".

I didn't use the word impossible (I did use the word inconclusive), although some of the terms I used were admittedly emotive. Basically when it comes to two positions, only one of which has a great deal of evidence in its favour, I'll choose that one as my working hypothesis any day.

I can't prove there are no supernatural entities. I can't prove that there are no purple tea sets orbiting around Pluto for that matter. To prove the negative hypothesis is always next to impossible. It's very rarely a question of 100% proof in anything. It comes down to "which is more likely given the evidence provided?' and 'which hypothesis works for me?' That opinion is not closed. If presented with additional evidence, I will always consider that evidence.

I'm just stating which hypothesis works for me.  

Everybody is entitled to their hypotheses, and I reiterate that I have nothing against religion per se.

wrote on Feb 19^th, 2008 at 1:28pm:

I can't prove there are no supernatural entities. I can't prove that there are no purple tea sets orbiting around Pluto for that matter.

This is an old chestnut comparison. One I've often heard from atheists. The invisible pink unicorn, etc. It tires me. You think I'm new to this?  


wrote on Feb 19^th, 2008 at 1:28pm:

I'm just stating which hypothesis works for me.

Whatever floats your barge. Don't really even wish to debate the point if you feel happy, and secure that your hypothesis is "safe".   


wrote on Feb 19^th, 2008 at 1:28pm:

Everybody is entitled to their hypotheses, and I reiterate that I have nothing against religion per se.

A hypothesis can evaporate in seconds, and if a material cause of NDEs is established, I will be thankful to science, because I have no dogmas to defend, religious or otherwise.

The comparison might tire you, but that doesn't make the argument invalid.

On a related subject, I think it would be very interesting to do a study on Ghost Sightings by Atheists. Now that would be a very brief thesis.

wrote on Feb 19^th, 2008 at 4:10pm:

The comparison might tire you, but that doesn't make the argument invalid. On a related subject, I think it would be very interesting to do a study on Ghost Sightings by Atheists. Now that would be a very brief thesis.

Or, perhaps, NDEs by atheists. They are all on Kevin's website, which I earlier linked.

I almost drowned when I was in East Africa a few years ago, so I'd rather avoid the subject of NDE's.

I had NDE, twice. On both occasions I was hit by a car and I woke up in the ER. There was no light at the end of the tunnel etc. I simply have two time periods in my life where I didn't exist as far as my conciousness is concern.

As Kerry Packer was purported to have said "I've been to the otherside and back, and there's smacking nothing there." LOL.

Acid Monkey wrote on Feb 29^th, 2008 at 4:36pm:

I had NDE, twice. On both occasions I was hit by a car and I woke up in the ER. There was no light at the end of the tunnel etc. I simply have two time periods in my life where I didn't exist as far as my conciousness is concern. As Kerry Packer was purported to have said "I've been to the otherside and back, and there's smacking nothing there." LOL.

Of course it could all end in final nothingness - complete doom, non-existence. And we need do nothing but eat, drink, and be merry. Have all the sex you can, in all the places you can, with all the people you can, and consume large amounts of alcohol at endless parties, and don't forget to kill millions, like Pol Pot did, and eventually died peacefully in his sleep at an old age. What does it matter? There's no heretofore, and no hereafter - Packer proved that!

I like to think there is a larger purpose to life than what meets the eye, and I like to think that our lives do have meaning. NDEs seem to indicate this, too. That we are not just "ships passing in the night". I believe the universe has purpose, even if it seems self-destructive, at times. It's probably just refining the riff-raff it needs to purge, in the ultimate purpose. It goes back to the age-old unanswered question - why is there something rather than nothing? What's the point? The problem is that we really don't like the idea that there could be consequences for all of our actions, and that unpleasant thought is enough to settle for the idea that we cease to exist after death.

I think that an absence of consequences would be just as disturbing for some - justice, karma etc.

freediver wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2008 at 4:06pm:

I think that an absence of consequences would be just as disturbing for some - justice, karma etc.

No doubt. But in my enclosed little fantasy world, I have seen real consequences occur. You don't reap apples if you plant banana seeds. If you lie, more often than not it will come back to you in negative consequences. A bloke named Richard Nixon knows all about this. And, of course, we all believe Bill Clinton, taking some liberal interpretations of what "sex" means. I really do think, however, in my fantasy world, that life itself metes out dire consequences for our actions, not necessarily based on human morality, but "natural consequences". I'm actually as much interested in logic as I am in spirituality. People don't end up in situations only because of chance, but choices going back a long way. You can't expect "divine intervention" for bad choices. If you buy a lemon, that's not the fault of the gods.  

In most cases, I have thought this lack of justice, karma, as being somewhat impatient for immediate results. Perhaps Hitler escaped this in his lifetime, even if he put a bullet through his own head. Now, some 75 years after "Germany's liberator", we know what most decent folks think of the name "Adolf Hitler". And the Nazi skin-heads who carry on his "work" today will reap the same consequences.

I could be totally naive here. But I've seen this so effective in my own life, that I'm still open to the idea that justice will occur - and RATBAGS and liars and thieves will get their just reward.  I believe there is a God. And I believe, ultimately, that there will be justice in life. To phrase it in offensive biblical terms: As you sow, so shall you reap. (No, I am not a Christian.)

But bananas don't have seeds.

freediver wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2008 at 5:47pm:

But bananas don't have seeds.

Sorry to break your misinformation FD:

http://www.apsnet.org/education/feature/banana/Images/Figure4.jpg

They are seedless fruit, but every tree has seeds. From some Internet "dills": http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080209214653AAAhiuH

Now - let's debate bananas! :D

More interesting (I presume) than NDEs - at least some may think.

Quote:

I could be totally naive here. But I've seen this so effective in my own life, that I'm still open to the idea that justice will occur - and RATBAGS and liars and thieves will get their just reward.  I believe there is a God. And I believe, ultimately, that there will be justice in life. To phrase it in offensive biblical terms: As you sow, so shall you reap. (No, I am not a Christian.)

Your post was well articulated Ray.  I hold similar views and have seen the results of justice or karma on those who have displayed no moral integrity.   I have seen people who were extremely selfish end up with neurological diseases and others who have been cruel end up receiving a worse punishment themselves.  

The folly of our youth often returns to haunt us and we should pass this onto our children to never deliberately hurt or exploit a weakness in another human being to gain an immoral or unlawful advantage.  They will be paid back twofold or more.

mantra wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2008 at 6:14pm:

The folly of our youth often returns to haunt us and we should pass this onto our children to never deliberately hurt or exploit a weakness in another human being to gain an immoral or unlawful advantage.  They will be paid back tenfold or more.

From my own experience, mantra, I've slightly editied your post, in bold.

Actually I said tenfold originally - then changed it to twofold in case I was accused of exaggerating.

Ray_A wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2008 at 6:17pm:

mantra wrote on Mar 2nd, 2008 at 6:14pm: The folly of our youth often returns to haunt us and we should pass this onto our children to never deliberately hurt or exploit a weakness in another human being to gain an immoral or unlawful advantage.  They will be paid back tenfold or more. From my own experience, mantra, I've slightly editied your post, in bold.

I have a lot of respect for Daoist or Taoist philosophy. That's why I hesitate to call myself an atheist, although I don't specifically believe in the traditional idea of a God.

Taoism states that words are just a sign to point to the non-conceptual ultimate reality,  or the dao (Tao). The Dao is indefinable. It isn't God, but some call it 'the way'.  All matter is basically a manifestation of the Ultimate Reality. It's the way things are. The nearest thing we have in Western philosophy is existentialism.

Taoist don't hold the position of good against evil; rather they see the interdependence of all dualities. So when one labels something as a good, one automatically creates evil. That is, all concepts necessarily are based on one aspect vs. another; if a concept were to have only one aspect, it would be nonsensical.

The reality of good and evil is that all actions contain some aspect of each. This is represented in the tai chi, which you may know as the yin-yang symbol. Any action would have some negative (yin) and some positive (yang) aspect to it. Taoists believe that nature is a continual balance between yin and yang, and that any attempt to go toward one extreme or the other will be ineffective, self-defeating, and short-lived. When people interfere with the natural balance by trying to impose their egoistic plans, they will not succeed; rather, the non-egoistic person allows nature to unfold, watching it ebb and flow from good to bad and back again.

What we see as good and bad are views from our own personal 'window' on the universe. What appears good from your window may appear bad from another.  We are basically part of nature. In nature, the bird might eat the snake. It's good for the bird, but bad for the snake.

Ultimately it's all balanced. It's a view that is totally consistent with scientific observation, which is why I have a lot of respect for it.

Ray_A wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2008 at 1:44pm:

Acid Monkey wrote on Feb 29th, 2008 at 4:36pm: I had NDE, twice. On both occasions I was hit by a car and I woke up in the ER. There was no light at the end of the tunnel etc. I simply have two time periods in my life where I didn't exist as far as my conciousness is concern. As Kerry Packer was purported to have said "I've been to the otherside and back, and there's smacking nothing there." LOL. Of course it could all end in final nothingness - complete doom, non-existence. And we need do nothing but eat, drink, and be merry. Have all the sex you can, in all the places you can, with all the people you can, and consume large amounts of alcohol at endless parties, and don't forget to kill millions, like Pol Pot did, and eventually died peacefully in his sleep at an old age. What does it matter? There's no heretofore, and no hereafter - Packer proved that! I like to think there is a larger purpose to life than what meets the eye....

I think that idea needs to be explored further. I personally take the view that life is wonderfully absurd, and that you'll really come adrift in a big way if you try to go against the natural flow. I do belief that there is no activity after life, and that's based on my studies of the largely deterministic relationship between brain and consciousness.  You just don't get soul surgeons or mind surgeons, but you do get brain surgeons, and they are mostly very effective, and have very good superannuation packages.

I don't belief in predestination as such. Based on my experience, we can control roughly 50% of the factors that influence our success (you can substitute destiny if you like). Another roughly 20-25% is outside our control but within our sphere of influence. So statistically at least, our 'destiny' is largely within our control. The part that is outside our control is irrelevant to me, because there is nothing I can do about it. The best thing I can do is concentrate on what I can control.

So does my life have a purpose? Yes - I set my own purpose. I dislike having somebody or something external to me trying to set my purpose.  I don't "eat drink and fornicate(sic) to excess", in fact I live a very conservative lifestyle, because it suits my purpose in life. My experience is that living life to the max will quite possibly put you over the max, so while I enjoy life, I don't overindulge. I also love people, and enjoy doing the right thing by them.  

Do I dread what happens after life? No. The thought of becoming one with the emptiness of the universe is a strangely comforting feeling to me, although those with a more Western view may find threatened by the emptiness of the universe.  

We are all star dust. We are all part of the ocean of life. We could describe a human being in terms of atoms and molecules, but even that continuously changes during life.  We change out the atoms in our bodies over a relatively short number of years. Who knows? Some of my atoms might be some of your atoms in a few years time.  In that sense we are continuously being reincarnated in some form or another, and I mean that strictly in a material sense.

So in that respect we (and life) are more like the waves on the ocean than the ocean itself.  

I talk about looking at dark skies in quiet outback settings. My current outlook in life came to me from such a quiet setting. It wasn't a near death experience - it was more a vivid life experience. Everything just clicked, and I could visualise the universe with an amazing sense of clarity. You could call it a moment of epiphany.  A religious person would probably have a different interpretation to that event than mine, but to me that moment was very 'sacred' and left me with a lasting impression. That's one of the reasons I have a lot of respect for religious people, and a dislike for the more shallow militant atheists.

We all have a spiritual side, and whether you internalise that spirituality and regard it as a function of an evolved cognizance like I do, or externalise it and associate it with a God or supernatural frame, that 'spiritual' side of us is extremely important for our overall health. Ignore it at your peril.

So I guess you have a better idea of where I'm coming from. Do I believe in God? - Well first tell me how you define God. I believe in an observable natural order in the universe. I also believe that we need to be in harmony with the universal 'Dao'. Does that count? Once you've defined God in a way that all theistic religions can agree upon, then you can try defining religion itself.

I like the term Chinese term "Dao" because it's truly indefinable. Call it the 'way' or the 'quest' if you like. If there comes a time when I'm not following the quest for knowledge, then I'll need to check my pulse to see if I'm still alive.  In that respect, I "worship" by a process of self-improvement.

So having defined all these things to your satisfaction, then try to define 'atheist'. It's an unfortunate term, and obviously a misleading one, because so many Americans think that atheism is a religion. So to avoid confusion with American english speakers, I'll just define myself as non-religious - but extremely spiritual.

Thanks for your well-articulated reply, Musician, but unfortunately I don't have time to reply at length until I'm off work again in a few days.