Near Death Experiences. According to Dr. Jeff Long, a leading researcher in near death experiences, at least 5% of the population experiences NDR sometime in their life. Each patient he worked with, each person he interviewed experienced the same thing. They were in some kind of tunnel with a light at the end of it. They were either greeted by a loved one who had died or by a voice telling them to go back.

Long quoted one patient who said of their experience, "like an ocean of knowledge" but upon returning "your brain is like a teacup." Meaning they had entered the world of divine and came back with just a tad bit of knowledge of what the world was like.

I figured mainstream science needs to look closely at this sort of stuff. I mean why not? If life after death is proven, would that prove there being a God? I'm sure scientists wouldn't like the sound of that. I don't care if they talk about evolution in text books, but broaden the horizons a bit.

Science has pretty much explained dreams, hasn't it?

Proving the existence of God wouldn't do a thing to change science. The science of the universe would still exist regardless of whether it was created by an omnipitent being or by a big bang 10 billion years ago. There would still be protons and neutrons, there would still be gravity and ultra-violet light. Proving that God made those things wouldn't change the fact that they still exist. And most scientists are more than likely christians or other religious types as well.

When people loose oxygen to their brain they are prone to fabrication. Most everyone sees the same thing because that is what happens when your brain looses oxygen

For some unknown reason (maybe God) I continued to read after this "fact".


That's basically what I believe (or certainly hope) death is.


Firstly, proving life after death would NOT prove the existence of God. It would prove life after death and that is all. There is no necessary logical link between God and life after death, even though beliefs about life after death do form the basis of religion in general. There could be a God and NOT be life after death, couldn't there? Maybe not in your narrow understanding of "God", but rationally, it could be, and vice versa.

Secondly, I can guarantee that scientists would be THRILLED to be able to scientifically prove life after death or even the existence of God. You know why? Because then people would no longer be able to cling to their WRONG beliefs about God and life after death because science would have given us the FACTS about those things. Only an idiot thinks that God hates science, or that science is "anti-God". Science is "anti-superstition", and is out to show what is true and what is not. Unlike religious fundamentalists who are out to show that what they believe is true in the face of science. Science and God can certainly exist side by side, but science and irrationality cannot, and that is what religious fundamentalists are afraid of.

Excellent post. I agree. Well for the most part. You say only an idiot thinks that God hates science. While I agree a bit, not all religious fundamentalists believe science is anti-God. There are a select few that do though.

Sometimes I suspect that punkdavid puts thought behind his posts on RM. I don't know what's up w/ that.

"When people loose oxygen to their brain they are prone to fabrication. Most everyone sees the same thing because that is what happens when your brain looses oxygen"

Everybody sees dead people and a tunnel of light when they lose oxygen to their brain? Gee you're right, forget talks about the afterlife. This is all fabrication [/quote]

Because we're always told that that's what we'll see. That's the image bouncing around in our heads anyhow. It's a dream.

Very valid point. I did some reading on this subject a while back, and it's reported that while near death experiences are common throughout the world, what is seen/felt during these experiences varies widely based on the culture/relgion/beliefs. Some people see a bright light at the end of a tunnel, while others see stars.

I think this is very much an issue where people are going to see what you want to see, because at this time there is no scientific explanation for it. However, keep in mind that at some point in the future, science may have an explanation for it. Attempting to automatically put a "this proves god" explanation behind this could blow up in your face. This proves the existance of god no more than it disproves the existence of god.

Fuck the mainstream!

Indie science is the place to be. Mainstream science is so 1997.

I mean, fuck, all scientists do these days is debate evolution. I mean, at the university where I study, we must have something like 600 professors diligently slaving away at their monkey experiments, with small armies of grad students worshipping at an alter of Darwin. You call that science? I call that pathetic.

All I know is I prefer my science without all that pussy "experimenting" and "peer-reviewing."

Some of you might be interested in a book called God and the New Physics by Paul Davies, a professor of theoretical physics. It has a lot of somewhat difficult concepts in it, but it is an excellent read on the connections between the two subjects and mostly how they interact.

Anyway, proving that there is life after death is infinitely more complicated than studying what people say. You would need to actually perform an observation in a controlled environment. A NDE is definitely not a controlled environment, as has been mentioned. I know nothing of the subject and have not done any reading on it, but I fail to see how the physiological and neurological processes involved in someone whose brain is close to stopping to function are much different from one in a dream or hallucination under the effects of drugs, etc.

As far as God coexisting with science, well, I have already recommended the book, and I guess I can only recommend it again. It truly has some fascinating insight, including an extremely detailed analyzation of the role God would play in the big bang and the creation of the universe as explained by astrophysics.

He must not be looking very hard, because it's definately not a unanimous experience.

this isn't a question for science because the existence of god/an after life is not falsifiable. how would you propose testing the hypothesis that there is life after death?

Stop your heart for a while and then have your friends bring you back ...