Proof That Heaven is Real - This Time From a Former Skeptic (no actual proof is to be found)
Offline Most atheists will quickly write off all NDEs as lack of oxygen in the brain or some other bogus explanation.
Well here's a story that blows those theories out of the water. A neurologist had a NDE experience and fully believes that he visited the afterlife and heaven.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/10/neurosurgeon-dr-eben-alexander-heaven.html
Here are the important factors to note in the story:
1. Dr. Eben is a highly educated neurologist, someone who is an expert on the brain yet he can not find a scientific explanation.
2. The cortex was shut down completely during his experience. His brain would have been incapable of generating thought or visual experiences
3. Dr. Eben was a former skeptic who once believed that there was a medical explanation for NDEs.
If you doubt his credentials, here they are:
http://www.eternea.org/Eben_Alexander/biography_eben.htm
This story is now being reported on several news sites and made the cover of this week's Newsweek.
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Won't doubt his credentials or his story. Arguments from personal experience aren't convincing to me because said experience can't be reproduced exactly in others..
How do you answer the NDEs that don't see heaven in exactly the way he did? Is there more than one Heaven?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
There are over 7 billion people alive in this world today each of us will eventually die; each with their own NDE to deal with. Based on that simple reality do you expect anyone to completely change their view of the world because of one (1) and only one (1) NDE? Get real.
Lack of oxygen to the brain is not bogus, it is a very serious condition and it does cause dizziness, delusions, mirages' and narcolepsy (thats sleep without being tired) all without sufffering meningitis or brain injury. The doctor was suffering Meningitis (Inflamation of the brain) so severe he WAS IN A COMA, by simple definition his brain is not working normally. Why should anyone believe memmorys from a non-working brain.
The Dr. is now trying to make some money by selling his book; meanwhile the PR dept. of his publishing house is doing everything they can to get his name in the News and hit the talk show circuit. What the hell is new or unique about any of this? NOTHING!
More importantly it is NOT evidence of anything.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
"former skeptic" ? This guy describes himself as a "faithful christian", so all that religious imagery was already there.
And btw, what are the new scientific arguments this expert has come up with to refute the current medical explanation of such experiences ?
Prove the experiences occured when the relevant parts of the brain were "shut down".
Exactly.
I guess his logic receptors were damaged in the coma
The unique thing is you can't claim that it was his brain creating the hyper-reality sensation. The cortext was shut down. Why don't I feel that sensation when I dream? I know this story wouldn't convince. I just wanted to see atheists scramble to come up with some weak counter-argument. Looks like you fell back on the "he's just lying for money" one. I seriously doubt that a man would risk his reputation and career to present a hoax like this.
OTOH, where is your evidence that there is nothing after death? You don't have any.
Our brains don’t tuck away a movie of our experiences somewhere in our temporal lobe; they store a few little details away, with a web of associations, and basically reconstruct the event when we try to recall it. This is why eyewitness testimony is unreliable — memory is dynamic and constantly being modified by later experience. When we lose conscious awareness and later recover it, the brain has absolutely no problem inventing a continuous narrative to fill in the blanks, and in fact, the way our minds work, we want that narrative. To consider that we didn’t exist for an interval of time is something we linear creatures tend to shy away from.
So when someone claims that a report of a recollection from a time when they were clinically dead is evidence of a mind functioning during that period when the brain was non-functional. I also have to add that all of the accounts of NDEs and other such out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are peculiar in their attachment to ordinary patterns of perception. They claim to become a non-corporeal, immaterial, invisible entity that floats around, but somehow, they use the same mundane senses they do in the body. How do invisible eyes capture photons? How do immaterial minds detect physical vibrations in the air? Sensory transduction is a real problem for beings that lack hair cells and photoreceptors, I would think.--PZ Myers http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/04/24/the-nde-delusion/
Here's an explanation about this here :
http://www.vidmax.com/video/1045/Near_death_experiences_debunked/
More can be found here :
http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html
The term 'near-death experience', or NDE, refers to a wide array of experiences reported by some people who have nearly died or who have thought they were going to die. There is no single shared experience reported by those who have had NDEs. Even the experiences of most interest to parapsychologists--such as the “mystical experience,” the “light at the end of the tunnel” experience, the “life review” experience, and the out-of-body experience (OBE)--rarely occur together in near-death experiences. However, the term NDE is most often used to refer to an OBE occurring while near death. Both types of experience have been cited to support belief in disembodied spirits and continued existence after death.
Blackmore wrote that in 2004 but, as noted above, in 2006 scientists demonstrated brain activity in someone in a vegetative state, which is not identical to a flat EEG but which indicates that some machines might detect brain activity while others do not.* Thus, those researchers who claim that their patients have memories of experiences they had when they were dead (as Dr. Michael Saborn does of musician Pam Reynolds) may be mistaken. Just because their machines don't register anything cannot be taken as proof positive that a person is dead, nor can it be taken as proof positive that the patient isn't aware, on some level, of what is going on around her. Unconscious patients may hear what surgeons and nurses are saying, even if the hospital machines aren't registering any brain activity.*
Furthermore, NDE stories are now known to a large audience. Thus, when new stories are told about going into the light, etc., one has to be concerned that these stories may have been contaminated. They may reflect what one has heard and what one expects. Such experiences are still subjectively real and may have profound effects on a person, but they should not be taken as strong evidence of separation of body and spirit, much less of life after death. (In any case, making extraordinary claims that can't be disproved won't hurt Dr. Saborn's book or Reynolds's record sales, a fact that has not escaped the attention of the webmaster of the near-death.com page promoting the sale of Saborn's book and Reynolds's CDs. Granted, the page is not on par with the unseemliness of Kübler-Ross's turbaned man standing in for the spirits of dead husbands, but the page doesn't do anything to encourage belief in the professionalism or reliability of Saborn's reports.)
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
SO instead of examining the evidence with an open mind, you do a quick copy and paste from a skeptic website. More proof that atheists don't want evidence no matter what you claim. No offense, but I think a man with his credentials is an expert on the brain.
"As far as I know, no one before me has ever traveled to this dimension (a) while their cortex was completely shut down, and (b) while their body was under minute medical observation, as mine was for the full seven days of my coma," said Alexander.
"My near-death experience, however, took place not while my cortex was malfunctioning, but while it was simply off," he explained. "There is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma… much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent."
TWD, why do you insist on equating "having an open mind" with agreeing 100% with you?
I experienced nearly the exact same thing the last time I bit into a York Peppermint Patty.
You know what my favorite part of NDE scenarios like this is? The fact that Never, Not Once, Ever, does anyone describe How they line the experience up to determine that the NDE happened "while" his brain was shut down.
Oh and in the case of this case specifically they don't describe how they actually know that was what he experienced, and given the extreme fallibility of human memory due to the fact that it isn't actually a recorded memory like a VHS recording but is rather procedurally generated on the fly from simpler data, well...
Just Sayin'
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
No proof found, fail.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Okay, then what are the new scientific arguments this expert has come up with to refute the current medical explanation of such experiences ?
This story is being barfed up all over tv media and the net. I saw this on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning and have commented on his bullshit on two different websites.
NDES are all bullshit and I find it dishonest for someone who claims to be a neurologist to base "heaven exists" on what amounts to personal experiance.
People on LSD or meth or pot can swear that they "see things" and bath salts can probably produce even worse delusions.
Now if this fuckwad really wants to assert that an afterlife exists, then it would mean that your conciousness could function without your brain. Then why if that were the case, can we not live without our heads like we can live without a finger or arm?
No what is really going on is all your brain functions dumping all at the same time,. like turning a trash can over which creates that feeling of intensety. It is like a fireworks display. During your healthy life the fireworks are normal and consistent, but at the end of your life it is like the creshendo of all the fireworks firing at once and then suddenly nothing.
The bullshit trap he fell for is nothing different than when you were a kid at a holloween party and someone told you to stick your hands in that bowl of eyeballs which were olives, if you want to believe those were eyeballs, you will.
In real death when you have that dark and light and intense feeling of love it is nothing more than your neurons and chemicals and memories being dumpped all at the same time. Just like a old Tube TV sudden brightness, tunnel, shrinking and then OFF.
He merely got lucky and it was revered before any irreversable perminant death happened.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Funny that atheists won't tell me exactly what is required for proof.
Then you have obviously never have heard of the people who wrote those articles I posted.
The copy and paste thing was done, because had I written what I know about NDE's without any sources, you would have dismissed any counter claims as not being knowlegeable on the subject and not having an open mind. Which you did anyway.
There is no evidence to really examine, other than the fact that someone can not possibly be cognizant without some type of brain activity occurring.
Do some research on the subject. I did quite a bit when I wanted to believe in the afterlife.
I read and believed : Beyond Death's Door. I actually believed a couple of books written by people who claimed to have gone to hell and come back.
But, further research yielded that no one, I repeat NO ONE has ever returned from a state of brain death.
There is a reason why it is called a NEAR death experience and not a DEATH experience. NO ONE has ever returned from the dead. NO ONE.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
No one has ever made such claims.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
When you strip all your statements to the bone, we only have biased angry baseless talk. You don't have a shred of evidence to discredit this guy. I guess you missed the part where his cortex was dead. Are you going to tell me that his brain was doing a trash dump for a full 7 days?
Funny how credentials don't mean squat if the person doesn't bat for your team. lol
Well, if you're going to make a big deal of someone's scientific qualifications, then it would help if you mentioned an actual scientific argument he made that refutes the accepted medical explanation he's attacking.
Btw, have you had other accounts here ? All that "my valuable time" and "translation" shtick seems kinda familiar.
Why would credentials matter if his results can't be reproduced or observable to someone other than him? Just because he's a scientist doesn't mean that his experiences automatically count as science.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Something that is observable to an outsider and can be repeated reliably with consistent results would be a good start
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Hey asshole, how about responding to my last post and showing us the proof that those experiences actually happened while his brain was in that state? Quite obviously depriving the brain of oxygen etc is something that happens gradually, so the fact his brain was in a state that we believe is incapable of producing such experiences for A PART OF THE TIME HE WAS UNCONCIOUS does not mean the experiences occured DURING THAT TIME.
Credentials don't mean shit to anyone with intelligence if the person is making retarded claims. You would not believe someone telling you that Jackie Chan has magical powers and he goes around turning himself an inch tall and punching the shit out of people's teeth while they're asleep and that's the explanation for cavities just because the jackass making that claim happens to be a dentist.
I'm sorry, did I disrespect you in my OP?
I could easily say the claim that nothing happens after death is just as retarded. You can not scientifically prove that man is merely only a product of his physical body. The FACT that every human being is a unique identity and personality tells me otherwise. The fact that this man's story really pisses you off tells me even more.
It's Paisley.
Awesome.
Awww...
Pais-Pais is back and still can't get anything right?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Yeah, change the subject isntead of answering the criticism like a typical theist bitch.
Well, the fact that damaging or altering parts of someone's brain can change their identity and/or personality is evidence the mind is affected by the brain. Unfortunately, I have no idea how you would test if someone's mind still exists when their brain is dead.
Also, seeing as how every person has both a unique genetic code and a unique set of experiences, I think it makes perfect sense that they would also have unique minds.
We don't need evidence; you and He make the claim you & he get to prove it; we make no claim. The cortex involved was the neocortex NOT the cerebralcortex (read your own article) the neocortex was inflamed with meningitis, the monitors can't monitor through the inflamation; that's NOT brain dead. Even if the neocortex IS dead that is still NOT brain dead, he would simply have no short term memmory. What memory he has is based on his "grey matter' so deseased with meningitis HE WAS IN A COMA!!! Why would any rational mind accept that as evidence?
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
He said no such thing about a 7 day trash dump. It's certainly not an every day event for our brains to go into (or, out of) a coma. This could have been a trash dump that lasted a minute, perhaps less. He could have very well perceived it to take a week, or after suffering brain damage, his brain could have filled in the holes in his knowledge with a false memory (especially since he claims to have worked on recalling it all for a while).
Hell, as a kid, I had a dream that lasted at least several days in "dream time", and in it I actually came to the conclusion that my real life was the dream all along. I actually recalled parts of my real life within it, and assumed it all a dream. If I can do that in one night's sleep (and most probably much less than the whole night...probably in one REM cycle), surely somebody who is suffering a neurological event like that could experience something incredible like he describes. There is nothing to see here, except somebody who is one of the following:
A. Being deliberately dishonest, or
B. Very wrong about a personal experience due to brain damage.
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
When you dream do you know exactly what time it is? How does he know the memory came from the time when his cortex was not working instead of right before it failed or right when it started working?
Whatever his credentials, as soon as he says "... consciousness outside of the brain is a fact. It’s an established fact." there is a good reason to question. As a doctor, he should be well aware that it is not an established fact and should be well aware that a single persons personal experience is not sufficient proof. If he said "I believe my experience suggests consciousness is outside of the brain and we should do experiments to prove that" I would give him more credibility. A scientist should be well aware that such claims are going to fall under considerable critique and skepticism.
It might interest you to know TWD, that scientists don't simply accept the assertions of other scientists. The entire purpose of journals is to allow scientists to rip their peers theories to shreds. A scientists provides their hypothesis, experiments and the conclusion that they draw and publish them publicly, then other experts in the field compare it to their own experiments and point out all of the flaws. It is a very messy business and more often than not scientists have their pet theories pigeon holed.
I find it interesting that this particular doctor decided to write a book to sell to the public before publishing anything in a professional journal where his peers would no doubt raise several questions.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Like you stated no proof, and merely stating that he had an NDE which he believes he experienced heaven, which has zero evidence to back up what he said and no way to verify his claim beyond his own statement (which is always hard for me to believe someone without the proper evidence [which is to say a testable, falsifiable and repeatable test] as I would be believing anyone that makes wild claims). As such, you are asking us to be open minded, yet if I were to state that the reason I do not believe him is because there is scientific evidence that it can be explained by biology, neuroscience, and how the brain functions ( http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=peace-of-mind-near-death ) as such it seems you are the closed minded one because you accept him at his word without accepting any other explanations. Sorry but having a different view of NDE does not make me closed minded, it makes me opened minded.
I take it this means that this person has been here before ?
First Fonzie, then Jim Henson/The Theist (man, he was an asshole), then Mr. Metaphysics and all his names, and now your saying this user has been here under another name too ?
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Just a strong hunch. It's the repeated use of that "translation" thing, a few other old catchphrases, the interest in NDE, and the general attitude that make me suspect a return.
He/She left us to become a mystic. I guess that didn't work out.
It is always hard to tell for sure whether a theist is just parroting the same inane arguments or is the same person. Theists are remarkably good at parroting intellectually vacant arguments and they tend to draw them from the same handful of apologist websites.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
If you'd ever learned how to think critically, observe/evaluate evidence, and most importantly do research, you wouldn't have to ask that question.
I'm not even a doctor and I can throw a wrench into this guys argument. All he talks about is the neo cortex. What about the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex? Human consciousness is spread out in the brain, not confined to the neo cortex.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I have a question for you TWD. What if this same story were presented before you with several slight differences.
1. The doctor was Muslim
2. He claimed to see Allah, and Mohammed with all of his wives
3. He said that instead of a god that loves us unconditionally, it was a god that only loved us if we believed in him (and Mohammed is his prophet)
This book would never even see the light of day here, but the Muslim world would be all over it like a half priced carnival ride.
If this were that story, would you be as compelled to believe it? Or would you attempt to figure out why it's wrong? Perhaps you would see what other neuroscientists have to say about it. You know, those ones that didn't suffer a coma from bacteria that eats their brains.
Also, look at his obvious ridiculous reach for exclusive credibility. Saying that he's the only one ever who has confirmed to have experienced all of this while his brain was not functioning. Nowhere does he say how he knows that it occurred while his brain was fully inactive, rather than while clocking in or out (which I'm sure wasn't quite as fast as the flick of a light, and may have altered how he perceived time).
Take a look at what you're doing here. You are citing a story as proof from a person who is simply asserting truth based on personal experience. He claims to have experienced this in the wake of a major brain event. He also stands to make a good several dollars off this, because gullible people will eat it up!
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
I will confound the wisdom of the wise and make fools out of the scholars. <-----OT biblical quote. Tampering with the brain can bring unexpected results. The brain is constructed for a particular purpose or purposes. When it's tampered with by any means there will be a corresponding result. However---you know not where-of you speculate. what you have here is a contradiction. On one hand religions claim that heaven is a place to go after you die. (was this scholar guy dead or not). If he wasn't dead then he couldn't have been in heaven----or somehow he raised himself from the dead after he killed himself????????? woooops. Then on the other side you're siding with the Alpha Smurfs who maintain that heaven is a mental condition of peace and contentment---in this case mental. You can't have it both ways. Tampering with the brain does not produce a heavenly condition. If ll he saw was bright lights then it's nothiong more the depriving the brain to bring about a result---that's not heaven under anyone's idea. (except maybe his). If you say he produced a heavenly result then we are correct-heaven is a state of mind. That means that the other is false, when one dies they go to heaven. which one is it. ????? According to religious standards he would be a heretic and false profit. What sayeth ye.
The only possible thing the world needs saving from are those running it.
https://sites.google.com/site/oldseers
Knowledge trumps faith and I'm not a Theist
Lies are nothing more then falsehoods searching for the truth
To add this topic, here is yet another tear down of dr eben's claims.
What Dr Alexander and his PR people claim is that his description of the afterlife is more authentic because he is a neurosurgeon. But when there is no evidence except the word of the beholder, a scientist’s accounts are no more reliable than those of anyone else. Would we literally believe the contents of a scientist’s dream because he or she has a PhD? If a scientist sees the lines of a visual illusion as wonky, should we believe that they really are wonky?
From here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9598971/Is-the-afterlife-full-of-fluffy-clouds-and-angels.html
And on the same token, why should I take your word that nothing happens after I die? The fact that he is a highly educated neurosurgeon and once wrote off NDE's as brain activity certainly lends a layer of credibilty to his story. The NDE test subjects have shown increased activity in the temporal lobe. His entire cortex was shut down. If you are going with the "he's just lying" route then it would be quite easy to discredit his story based on medical records. I see no reason why he would take such a chance.
Why not? You're taking the word of an old book that it exists and taking the word of this scientist that the afterlife is exactly as the old book says.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
I'm still waiting for some facts and evidence which will convince me that the medical field knows everything there is to know about the human brain.
The truth is that we are just now, in the year 2012, touching the tip of the iceberg knowledge, when it comes to understanding how the human brain functions and what happens when some people experience "NDE's".
Btw what happened to respecting this dude's free will? God can't reveal there's a heaven to the rest of because we supposedly have free will but this guy's free will is apparently not important to god.
You shouldn't take my word, or anyone's, about that. But you should do a lot of thinking about it.
Once again, his cortex was "offline" for 7 days. We agree here. But you haven't responded to the possibilities of what people can experience in the time before it shuts off, and the time it is coming back to functioning. The person in question had certainly never experienced that before this instance. It was probably very powerful, and considering he said it took him months to come up with an account of what he experienced, it would be nothing but foolish to say that he is certain of when it happened. If this was a true out of body experience, separate from his brain, how does his brain remember it?
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
And to repeat myself, he experiences brain trauma!! These experiences are powerful for all who have them. Have you ever heard of the term "conflict of interest?" This is not exactly that, but can be compared. I can't be impartial on a jury if a crime was committed against someone close to me. I experience it differently, and thus have a different perception of the event than would someone impartial. In the same way, except much more extreme, he can not be a fair judge here. He experienced brain trauma, which severely impairs his judgement about this.
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
QFT.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Just adding a few things that should about put a lid on this thread.
Mark Cohen, a pioneer in the field of neuroimaging who holds appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Science, Neurology, Psychology, Radiological Science, and Bioengineering at UCLA. His response to Sam Harris regarding some of the things Dr. Eben stated:
So what this he said about his cortex being completely shut down, is not possible given him having the ability to write a book. He was either ignorant on the topic (far from likely, considering his field of expertise, although possible considering the brain episode itself), or he is deliberately misleading people.
A few more highlights from the article I got the above quote from (quotes below by Sam Harris):
Hmm, consciousness not purely a matter of cortical activity (Hmm, sorta like Vastet said!). Cortex completely shutting down is an incredible claim....interesting. It sounds like something a neurologist should know. It's almost as if he either suffered life-altering brain damage, or is being deliberately dishonest. What else is up there...oh, the timing of his visions. Reminds me of something I said!
All quotes taken from http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/this-must-be-heaven Feel free to confirm that I haven't been quote-mining to misrepresent anything, and feel free to find other credible people in the field corroborating the accounts of Dr Eben. Also, if you can find any refutations of what Sam Harris says in his article (or any other neurologists, neurosurgeons, etc, who have posted similar explanations on the topic), present them. Somehow I doubt it though. Once you're presented with this much, you either quietly let the thread die, or whine. Present evidence, and we can continue this discussion (and if you make a habit of it, we may even stop poking fun at your incessant whining)
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
Again, you asked us to believe, I am telling you why I don't. I don't expect you to believe what I believe in, however I cannot without any proof believe your statement and this Dr. Eber either without any proof. It's that simple, his story has been discredited already by science, that's the problem that you refuse to see.