I’m Looking for Information on the Light We See at Death.

My belief is that the light is a good thing. The people who try to tell you to avoid the light have no other solutions for you, they offer no guidance in terms of how you are supposed to move on from the point of death. They try to suggest that by going into the light you are getting stuck in a 'reincarnation trap'. This is a cynical & idiotic position. They offer no alternatives. By telling you to avoid the light they are telling you to seek the darkness. Does that sound like a good idea?

Your own experience suggests that being in the light was a positive, warm, loving experience. Indeed, it wasn't your time. But I assure you, when you exit this life, seek the love & warmth of that Light again, do NOT seek the darkness. Within the light you will find Jesus, and it's ideal to ask Him into your heart before your time comes. Even if you don't, that doesn't mean you'll go to Hell. The only way to guarantee Hell is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, which means to claim that the work of God is the work of the Devil instead. And that can only be done from an cynical state of knowledge that what you are saying is evil & wrong, that you know that, yet are saying it anyway, usually with the intention to deceive.

Even people who live a bad life can call on God at the time of their death, and much like the thief on the Cross during Christ's crucifixion, even if you have mere minutes to go before you literally meet your maker, if you centre your heart & reflect on your life, realising that you've not done great perhaps, then simply ask God for forgiveness, and just like that thief the Lord will say "Today you will be with me in Paradise". Having a heart that is humble is the main thing. Accept & acknowledge your weakness & your failings. Then the light will hold no terrors whatsoever (as if it ever could). Only those who want to hide their sins will avoid the light deliberately. Anyone who tells you to avoid the light, is telling you to choose darkness, and that is the person you need to ignore with all your heart. Go into the light. Call on God for forgiveness & acceptance. Enter the light, approach the throne boldly; when you know that you have humbled yourself before God, there is no need to fear.

a reply to: whyamIhere

I don’t know if this happened to me or not, lol but…. my mom died/NDE while giving birth to me, nurses had notified my dad who was in the waiting room with my sister that there was a problem. So, to the point and why the info above is relevant, Mom says she left her body and was floating above bed and then she floated above my dad and sister in the waiting room. She also mentioned they were praying (dad was a pastor). She then said she was on this pathway lined with these perfect trees and she’d never felt anything so good and peaceful in her life. There was a light and she said when she got there she was told she had to go back, she didn’t want to leave but she did. She said it was such a peaceful place that she really didn’t want to come back. When she came to, there I was with a bruised forehead. Yep, problem child out of the gate😂

So, sister and I were talking about this a few years ago and I told her the version she had told me which is the same way she’d heard it. I asked if they were in the waiting room, she said yes. I asked if dad and her were praying, she said yes, they they’d lost mom. I’d only talked to her about this one time decades ago but not in depth. What blew my mind is that somehow mom witnessed all this, out of body, including them waiting outside the room and praying. Another strange detail was that my mom never told sister she saw them praying. Sis was as stunned as I was when I asked her about it.

Mom said it changed her and that she was never ever afraid of death again.

I was always on the fence somewhat but after hearing my sister describe her account to the event, backed up everything mom had said verbatim, I tend to think something’s going on, to what level idk.

In the words of Dr. Richard Blacher of Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston: “We are dealing here with the fantasy of death, not with death itself. This fantasy [within the patient’s psyche, or mind] is most appealing, since it solves several human concerns at one time.”

Psychologist Ronald Siegel says: “These experiences are common to a wide variety of arousal in the human brain, including L-S-D, sensory deprivation and extreme stress. The stress is producing the projection of the images into the brain. They are the same for most people because our brains are all wired similarly to store information, and these experiences are basically electrical read-outs of this wiring.”

Dr. Kenneth Ring, professor of psychology and author of Life at Death, which promotes the idea of an afterlife, or life after the death of the physical body, admits: “I remind my audiences that what I have studied are near-death experiences, not after-death experiences. . . . There is obviously no guarantee either that these experiences will continue to unfold in a way consistent with their beginnings or indeed that they will continue at all. That, I believe, is the correct scientific position to take on the significance of these experiences.”

As for death, psychologist Siegel gives his opinion: “Death, in terms of its physical sequels, is no mystery. After death the body disintegrates and is reabsorbed into the inanimate component of the environment. The dead human loses both his life and his consciousness. . . . The most logical guess is that consciousness shares the same fate as that of the corpse. Surprisingly, this commonsense view is not the prevalent one, and the majority of mankind . . . continue to exert their basic motivation to stay alive and formulate a myriad of beliefs concerning man’s survival after death.”

About 3,000 years ago the same “commonsense view” was given by a king who wrote: “For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten. Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion anymore to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun. All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol [mankind’s common grave], the place to which you are going.”​—Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10.

Certainly the Bible leaves no room for considering near-death experiences as a prelude to life after death. King Solomon’s description of death and its effects has no hints of an immortal soul surviving into some other form of conscious existence. The dead “are conscious of nothing at all.”

Of course, those who practice spiritism and communication with the “dead” are only too pleased to have the apparent support of hundreds of near-death experiences. Psychologist Siegel quotes one lecturer on the paranormal, or supernatural, as saying that “if we are to examine the evidence for an afterlife honestly and dispassionately we must free ourselves from the tyranny of common sense.” (Psychology Today, January 1981) Interestingly, this same lecturer “argues that ghosts and apparitions are indeed hallucinations, but they are projected telepathically from the minds of dead people to those of the living!” That certainly does not agree with Solomon’s conclusion that the dead are dead and know nothing.

Myth 1: The Soul Is Immortal (One Myth Leads to Another)

What is the origin of the myth?

“The early Christian philosophers adopted the Greek concept of the soul’s immortality and thought of the soul as being created by God and infused into the body at conception.”​—The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1988), Volume 11, page 25.

What does the Bible say?

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”​—Ezekiel 18:4, King James Version.

Regarding the creation of the first human soul, the Bible says: “Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul [Hebrew, neʹphesh].”​—Genesis 2:7.

The Hebrew word neʹphesh, translated “soul,” means ‘a creature that breathes.’ When God created the first man, Adam, He did not infuse into him an immortal soul but the life force that is maintained by breathing. Therefore, “soul” in the Biblical sense refers to the entire living being. If separated from the life force originally given by God, the soul dies.​—Genesis 3:19; Ezekiel 18:20.

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul raised questions: Where do souls go after death? What happens to the souls of the wicked? When nominal Christians adopted the myth of the immortal soul, this led them to accept another myth​—the teaching of hellfire.

Compare these Bible verses: Ecclesiastes 3:19; Matthew 10:28; Acts 3:23

FACT:

At death a person ceases to exist

How, then, can all the near-death and out-of-body experiences be explained? Basically, there are at least two possibilities​—one is that presented by some psychologists to the effect that the still-active brain of the near-dead person recalls and forms images under the stresses of the near-death experience. These are then interpreted by some patients and investigators to be glimpses of life after death. In fact, as we have seen from the Bible, such cannot be the case, for man does not have an immortal soul, and there is no such thing as life after death as perceived in these cases.

But there is a second possibility to be taken into account that may explain some of these experiences. It is a factor that most investigators will not admit. For example, Dr. Moody explained in his book Life After Life that “rarely, someone . . . has proposed demonic explanations of near-death experiences, suggesting that the experiences were doubtless directed by inimical forces.” However, he rejects the idea since he feels that instead of the patients’ feeling more godly after the experience, “Satan would presumably tell his servants to follow a course of hate and destruction.” He adds, “He certainly has failed miserably​—as far as I can tell—​to make persuasive emissaries for his program!”

In this respect Dr. Moody makes a grave mistake in two ways. First, Satan would not necessarily promulgate hate and destruction through these experiences. Why not? Because the Bible states: “Satan himself keeps transforming himself into an angel of light. It is therefore nothing great if his ministers also keep transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 11:14, 15) If he can perpetuate the basic lie that he has always maintained​—“You positively will not die”—​he can do it through the apparently most innocent and enlightening means.​—Genesis 3:4, 5.

Second, he has not failed miserably to make persuasive emissaries for his program of lies about the immortal soul! To the contrary, he now has doctors, psychologists and scientists fully supporting the lie that he has promulgated through priests and philosophers down through the ages! How appropriate is Paul’s summation of the situation when he wrote: “If, now, the good news we declare is in fact veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing, among whom the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through”!​—2 Corinthians 4:3, 4. “For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome* [Or “healthful; beneficial.”] teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.* [Or “to tell them what they want to hear.”] They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories.” (2 Timothy 4:3,4) “So we should no longer be children, tossed about as by waves and carried here and there by every wind of teaching by means of the trickery of men, by means of cunning in deceptive schemes.” (Ephesians 4:14) “Look out that no one takes you captive by means of the philosophy and empty deception according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ;” “We have much to say about him, and it is difficult to explain, because you have become dull in your hearing.” (Col 2:8; Hebrews 5:11) “However, the inspired word clearly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired statements and teachings of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, whose conscience is seared as with a branding iron.” (1 Timothy 4:1,2).

Coming back to the expression "philosophy and empty deception according to human tradition" as used there at Colossians 2:8 quoted at the end of my previous comment...

This idea of an immaterial immortal soul (sometimes also referred to with other terms, basically the idea that some immaterial part of a human remains conscious and alive after the death of the physical body, along with the idea that the physical body is just a shell for this immaterial part, allowing for things such as astral projection or so-called out-of-body experiences as well), is an ancient idea/philosophy, perpetuated by means of "human tradition".

Ancient Babylonian religious concepts and practices are found in religions worldwide. “Egypt, Persia, and Greece felt the influence of the Babylonian religion . . . The strong admixture of Semitic elements both in early Greek mythology and in Grecian cults is now so generally admitted by scholars as to require no further comment. These Semitic elements are to a large extent more specifically Babylonian.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898), M. Jastrow, Jr., pp. 699, 700.

Eg. their beliefs regarding death: “Neither the people nor the leaders of religious thought [in Babylon] ever faced the possibility of the total annihilation of what once was called into existence. Death was a passage to another kind of life.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 556.

So this false teaching, myth and philosophy/idea is basically a contradiction, 'death = life' (that's what the bolded sentence boils down to). It's a modified version of the same lie Satan told Eve when he said she wasn't going to die as quoted in my previous comment. He had to modify it after Eve died and he was exposed for the liar that he is.

“Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, turning away from the empty speeches that violate what is holy and from the contradictions of the falsely called ‘knowledge.’ By making a show of such knowledge, some have deviated from the faith.” (1Tim 6:20)

Knowledge (Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2)

...
Knowledge (gno'sis) is put in a very favorable light in the Christian Greek Scriptures. However, not all that men may call “knowledge” is to be sought, because philosophies and views exist that are “falsely called ‘knowledge.’” (1Ti 6:20) ...
... Thus Paul wrote about some who were learning (taking in knowledge) “yet never able to come to an accurate knowledge [...] of truth.” (2Ti 3:6, 7)

And coming back to one of the myths that this myth of an immaterial immortal soul leads to (as mentioned before at the end of the article from the series One Myth Leads to Another):

Lies, false stories/myths, built upon other lies. Satan's modus operandi as "the father of the lie" (John 8:44).

Some other myths/false stories that depend on getting people to believe the lie that the soul is immaterial:

- everything involving astral projection and OBE's.
- everything involving reincarnation (which also ties in with evolutionary mythology, which also comes from ancient Babylonian religious philosophies, and from there spread to Egypt, Greece and Persia; gaining more traction in so-called "Eastern Philosophy", or let's call it what it is, mythology)
- eveything involving "spiritual vibration frequency" (as it is called)

And more.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the meanings popularly attached to the English word “soul” stem primarily, not from the Hebrew or Christian Greek Scriptures, but from ancient Greek philosophy, actually pagan religious thought. Greek philosopher Plato, for example, quotes Socrates as saying: “The soul, . . . if it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, . . . goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy, freed from error and folly and fear . . . and all the other human ills, and . . . lives in truth through all after time with the gods.”​—Phaedo, 80, D, E; 81, A.

In direct contrast with the Greek teaching of the psy·kheʹ (soul) as being immaterial, intangible, invisible, and immortal, the Scriptures show that both psy·kheʹ and neʹphesh (the Hebrew word), as used with reference to earthly creatures, refer to that which is material, tangible, visible, and mortal.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia says: “Nepes [neʹphesh] is a term of far greater extension than our ‘soul,’ signifying life (Ex 21.23; Dt 19.21) and its various vital manifestations: breathing (Gn 35.18; Jb 41.13[21]), blood [Gn 9.4; Dt 12.23; Ps 140(141).8], desire (2 Sm 3.21; Prv 23.2). The soul in the O[ld] T[estament] means not a part of man, but the whole man​—man as a living being. Similarly, in the N[ew] T[estament] it signifies human life: the life of an individual, conscious subject (Mt 2.20; 6.25; Lk 12.22-23; 14.26; Jn 10.11, 15, 17; 13.37).”​—1967, Vol. XIII, p. 467.

The Roman Catholic translation, The New American Bible, in its “Glossary of Biblical Theology Terms” (pp. 27, 28), says: “In the New Testament, to ‘save one’s soul’ (Mk 8:35) does not mean to save some ‘spiritual’ part of man, as opposed to his ‘body’ (in the Platonic sense) but the whole person with emphasis on the fact that the person is living, desiring, loving and willing, etc., in addition to being concrete and physical.”​—Edition published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, 1970.

Yet in spite of these admissions in the figurative 'fineprint' that nobody bothers reading, at least not before they are sufficiently indoctrinated with the belief in an immaterial immortal soul and the notion that we have a soul rather than the Bible teaching that we are souls (see previous comment and the quotation of Genesis 2:7), the Roman Catholic Church and many other denominations within Christendom still teach these lies about an immaterial immortal soul that survives the death of the physical body. Ironic isn't it? They expose their own lies in their own encyclopedias and Bible translations, so they know better, but are holding fast to the lie.

“But let God be found true, even if every man be found a liar.” (Romans 3:4)

“Make sure of all things; hold fast to what is fine.” (1 Thessalonians 5:20,21)

Neʹphesh evidently comes from a root meaning “breathe” and in a literal sense neʹphesh could be rendered as “a breather.” Koehler and Baumgartner’s Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden, 1958, p. 627) defines it as: “the breathing substance, making man a[nd] animal living beings Gn 1, 20, the soul (strictly distinct from the greek notion of soul) the seat of which is the blood Gn 9, 4f Lv 17, 11 Dt 12, 23: (249 X) . . . soul = living being, individual, person.”

So yeah, we do not have a soul, we are souls (as the Bible uses the term).

Gen. 9:5: “Besides that, your blood of your souls [or, “lives”; Hebrew, from neʹphesh] shall I ask back.” (Here the soul is said to have blood.)

Josh. 11:11: “They went striking every soul [Hebrew, neʹphesh] that was in it with the edge of the sword.” (The soul is here shown to be something that can be touched by the sword, so these souls could not have been spirits.)

“There is no dichotomy [division] of body and soul in the O[ld] T[estament]. The Israelite saw things concretely, in their totality, and thus he considered men as persons and not as composites. The term nepeš [neʹphesh], though translated by our word soul, never means soul as distinct from the body or the individual person. . . . The term [psy·kheʹ] is the N[ew] T[estament] word corresponding with nepeš. It can mean the principle of life, life itself, or the living being.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), Vol. XIII, pp. 449, 450.

“The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture.”—The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910), Vol. VI, p. 564.