Top neurosurgeon 'spent six days in heaven' during a coma

Originally posted by WhoKnows100

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
I'm getting fed up of reading quotes from scripture, some people don't realise it complete nonsense. Why do people feel that they need to memorise this crap so they can regurgitate it to others who don't share the belief.

I like the Christopher Hitchens religious metaphor where he compares a person with religion to a child with a toy. I don't like your toys and I don't want to play with your toys. You play with your toys on your own and don't try give them to anybody else.

Dr. Eben Alexander is giving you "scripture" - unfortunately it's the doctrines of demons as given to you by President Ahmadinejad.

Seriously?

At least there is one President left who is spiritual and not yearning for war because of greed.

"Doctrines of demons"??

I believe you are confused and maybe a bit fooled, but thats just MY opinion. And so is this....

There is a heaven. This experience in the OP is one of MANY and its an experience for the observer more than anything. If people do not believe.... that is on them. These experiences give others hope though and for that reason I think the experience even though not had by me is still relevant.

Too many people experience an after life.

Too many people who worshiped another deity in fact see Jesus.

Why? Cause he is the man!

reply to post by MamaJ


How can you be so certain when there is absolutely no evidence to back up your claims.

If people in comas hallucinating is proof of heaven then let's take done magic mushrooms and discover proof of pink elephants.

Jesus is a lie.

reply to post by GafferUK1981


I have an awesome idea! How about we let people believe what they would like to believe? If you do not believe it, then great for you. I would not recommend pushing your ideals and beliefs on other people. That is a form of repression that none of us should have to deal with.

Believe and let believe, in whatever you want. Who cares what the next guy believes in. Does it really hurt your beliefs if someone believes in life after death? No matter what we believe, you are going to believe what you want, right? So stop getting bothered if people want to hope for something after this dismal place we call home.

OK, off the soapbox now...

If you read at all, you can see that many, many human beings have had experiences like the Doctor's down through thousands of years. I agree that one's "spiritual experience" may be subjective, based on their own concepts of a higher power and an afterlife, but the evidence is overwhelming that the majority of these experiences are full of light and peace and are generally affirmative, though I have read of some that were not so pleasant. The equivalent of "hell" I suppose.

I have had many years of education in which the majority of my professors believed that spiritual experiences were delusional and have no basis in science. I am aware that questioning them puts my own intelligence in question for many educated people. I can only say that had I not had a few experiences myself I might be tempted to capitulate to the peer pressure. The formerly skeptical scientist in the OP had to have his own experience before he began to see that maybe he was wrong.

I think the centuries will show that maybe the absolute certainty that there is no spiritual reality is just the characteristic of one particular people at a particular time in history, and that maybe their conviction is simply the equivalent of the flat earth theory which was firmly believed by most western people for a long, long time.

reply to post by MarshMallow_Snake


Wow that's rich, religious people have forced they're beliefs on others for centuries and killed people for not believing. It's about time the shoe was on the other foot.

If you take a step back and observe religion from the outside it is unbelievably clear that it is all nonsense. People can believe whatever they want as far as I am concerned but if anybody talks about god to me I will tell them the truth. Before you ask I only call atheism the truth because the evidence is on our side with no evidence on the side of religion.

In a murder trial if there is unsummountable proof that the defendant is guilty then it is accepted as truth that they are guilty. Why can't the evidence based system work for religion? I'll tell you why, because billions of people worldwide will have to admit that they have believed in a lie since childhood and if there's one thing more than anything that the human race hate doing it's admitting that they are wrong.

reply to post by GafferUK1981


Is anyone here doing any of that to you? It does not appear that way, so that would nullify your defense. Has it happened in the past? Yes. Is it still happening? I am sure somewhere. Do I take part in it? No... I let people think what they want to think on this topic...because it really does not bother me anyway. Then, on the other hand, you have people like yourself who come in here and spout off on how stupid people are and how childish they are for believing in a fairy tale, blah, blah, blah...well, if that fairy tale allows us to treat one another the way all people should be treated, then what is the problem? No one here is taking it to an extreme and hurting anyone. We are talking about what we believe to be true. Everyone is entitled to do so. When the attacks happen, then it crosses the line.

So, like I asked, let people believe what they want to believe. No one is forcing you to believe. You believe what you want, and let me believe what I want. I am not calling you names because you do not believe.

It is quite simple.

ETA:

And, as I said earlier, I am not even talking about religion. Religion and God are two different things, and there is a HUGE difference.

reply to post by GafferUK1981

In a murder trial if there is unsummountable proof that the defendant is guilty then it is accepted as truth that they are guilty. Why can't the evidence based system work for religion? I'll tell you why, because billions of people worldwide will have to admit that they have believed in a lie since childhood and if there's one thing more than anything that the human race hate doing it's admitting that they are wrong.

If you are going to take this approach, then I have to say that there is evidence for religion everywhere. People practice their religion every day. Go to a church, a mosque, or a synagogue, and you will see evidence of religion.

Now, God and the afterlife, there is no hard evidence either way (so therefore, neither side can be assumed to be correct). It is all up to the person's interpretation. However, if you look around you and see the beauty of this world, and the order of things, it cannot be by chance. Someone or something, I believe, has played a part in the overall orchestration of what we know and call reality. Whether it be God, a computer simulation, aliens, whatever it may be, it is all too carefully orchestrated to be a stoke of luck that happened to result in where we are today. But, then again, that is what I believe. And I am not going to try to convince you that I am right, because as long as I believe it, then that is all that matters.

And I agree with your last line in that quote. I know a few people like that.

reply to post by MarshMallow_Snake


Of course there is evidence of religion, I am not denying that but there is no evidence that any religion is correct.

Yes the world is beautiful but it isn't this way cos of a god, it is a product of evolution. You're forgetting that the planet has had billions of years to evolve into what we see now. Not 6 - 10 thousand years some idiots believe. Science can explain how we came to be, religion tried and failed.

reply to post by buster2010


The pineal glad you say...

I don't understand how a rush of peptides could have caused this especially with a total lack of active cells to dock to. Especially since the part of his brain that controls emotion and thought (the part the pineal glad would have acted on) was shut down.

Him actually going to heaven is more likely than your particular explanation...

reply to post by MarshMallow_Snake


I don't believe in that fairy tale but I treat people how they should be treated. I don't need religion to have morals, that's the weakest argument in the book.

reply to post by GafferUK1981


Off topic post much?

2nd line

and a 3rd

and a 4th just for the heck of it.

reply to post by DaMod


My point is that there is no god and no heaven therefore this man peddling his book can't have gone to heaven.

There will be a scientific explanation, we just don't know the answer yet but that doesn't mean we never will. Science unlike religion moves forward, progresses and makes new discoveries.

reply to post by GafferUK1981


So, coming in here an calling people morons for believing in a "fairy tale" is how people are to be treated? Nice one.

His experience sounds to me like a '___' trip. You find yourself conscious in the hyperspace and interact with mystical beings. Your pineal gland releases '___' moments before you die and when you dream. Interesting indeed.

reply to post by MarshMallow_Snake


How do you tell someone nicely that the stories they have been brainwashed to believe since birth is a load of crap.

I heard about this on the radio yesterday. I should really look into this more prior to posting but something's not quite right. If he was in a coma, that means he wasn't dead. How can someone who is still alive be in heaven? It seems to me that he was just having some realistic dreams and since he couldn't address them consciously, he simply equated it to a real experience. I also heard that he described it as the same old Christian white clouds and music thing. Is he kidding? If it's nothing but white clouds and soft music then you can send me elsewhere. Who could honestly think that's heaven?

How does one explain the majority of people who die and are revived and experience...nothing. There's a lot more of them than there are people seeing angels and bright lights.

Originally posted by karen61057


Unfortunatly what you say is not really true. Everyone does not have different brain activity for the same stimuli. The same stumuli will produce the same results in everyone as far as brainwave activity is concerned.

The proof that brain activity for the same stimuli CAN come from different parts of the brain, have a look at children that had half their brain removed. The other half compensates and the children grow up to be quite normal.

Originally posted by Tikiman
...If he was in a coma, that means he wasn't dead. How can someone who is still alive be in heaven? It seems to me that he was just having some realistic dreams and since he couldn't address them consciously, he simply equated it to a real experience....

Someone on here will point out to you that his neocortex showed no activity.

My answer to them can be summed up in a few points:

1. No activity in the cortex is NOT the same as being brain dead. The cortex is for higher level functions (thought and emotion, as the OP's article points out), but other brain functions were still happening.

2. Even IF the equipment hooked up to him showed no signs of activity from his cortex, there still could be activity that science does not yet understand -- activity that our equipment CANNOT detect.

3. It's also possible that once his cortex resumed activity (and before he woke up from the coma) his brain put together this dream.

Originally posted by jtap66
How does one explain the majority of people who die and are revived and experience...nothing. There's a lot more of them than there are people seeing angels and bright lights.

Well obviously, those people don't have souls.
Maybe only 144000 people on earth actually have souls, and this guy's one of them.

Has anyone mentioned the persinger "God" helmet? The one that induces the experiences of presences and religious-type experiences via brain stimulation?

Reports by participants of a "sensed presence" while wearing the God helmet brought public attention and resulted in several TV documentaries.[2] The device has been used in Persinger's research in the field of neurotheology, the study of the neural correlates of religion and spirituality.

although...

The foundations of his theory have been criticised in the scientific press,[5] anecdotal reports by journalists,[6] academics[7][8] and documentarists[9] have been mixed and the effects reported by Persinger have not been independently replicated. The only attempt at replication published in the scientific literature reported a failure to reproduce Persinger's effects and the authors proposed that the suggestibility of participants, improper blinding of participants or idiosyncratic methodology could explain Persinger's results.[10] Persinger argues that the replication was technically flawed,[8][11] but the Swedish researchers have stood by their replication.

God helmet