Afterlife: Matt Take Notice!!! (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, January 05, 2012, 03:12 (4707 days ago) @ dhw

Matt is going through the long list of NDEs that David drew our attention to some weeks ago. He has read the first three, and finds “nothing in these stories that can tell me that they weren’t experiencing a waking dream – in which our conscious and subconscious collide in the now.”

You say of Reinee Pasarow that “she was obviously still conscious.” If you read the story again, you will find that she had been pronounced dead on arrival, that she saw her own body from the outside, and observed what different people were doing. This is not a waking dream. Interestingly, you would like to know more about her experience in “heaven”, because of course that WOULD fit into your dream theory as it can’t be verified. In the context of our discussion, I’m much more interested in the fact that she saw real people doing real things, although clearly there was no visible sign of her seeing or registering anything. That’s why she was pronounced dead! How do you see people, scenes and events all around you without moving your eyes and your body?

Being pronounced dead--doesn't mean you're dead. It doesn't even mean you're not conscious--it means you're unable to respond, like a coma victim or a sufferer of sleep paralysis. Discussion of the afterlife in NDEs are telling because as you will read in my other comments, they always take on the beliefs inculcated in the experiencer.

Having never had an experience like this myself, I can't be anything but intensely skeptical.

Your conclusion so far is: “I’m not saying at all that these experiences are pure dreams – this I do not know. But at the same time, they don’t make me any more ready to accept the idea of a disembodied consciousness.”

I have not asked you accept it. I have asked you to suspend judgement, in accordance with the principles of your old mate Agrippa. Dreams? Your own bear no relation to the Pasarow “death”. Have you ever dreamed what is actually happening to you in reality at a specific moment when your body and brain have been pronounced dead? Later, you will come to some experiences that I find even more puzzling, i.e. those in which information is obtained and afterwards corroborated by witnesses. Waking dreams provide no explanation at all. So please read on.

I won't add to the commentary I've already laid down: I have more questions than answers. Maybe you'll take my responses as being more able to discuss them, but the reason I don't is that they are SO subjective as to be beyond question.

In some small free time, I've been reading the writings of Christian apologist St. Athanasius. In it he discusses--as evidence for Christ--all of the demons that can be driven away by using the name of Christ and the Cross...

dhw,
Where have all the demons gone?

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"