Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

Post by Doom »

This is something I have been obsessed with, periodically, since childhood. I can go years without thinking about these then something happens where I become obsessed again and start reading everything I can find about it. At one time I was very skeptical of the authenticity of these experiences, after all, you have to rely entirely on someone else's word, and who knows if the people claiming to have had these experiences are telling the truth.

But then I started looking at the actual scientific studies that have been done, and I have become convinced that they are real, and I don't think a natural explanation is possible. This is especially true of the people who come back from an NDE with knowledge they cannot possibly know by natural means.

For example, some people can describe the process the doctors used to resuscitate them, which no one without advanced medical knowledge could accurately describe because what you see in movies and on TV is not even close to accurate. In some cases, people come back from resuscitation accurately describing a conversation that was held during the process in another room on the other side of the hospital. In another case, a patient said that he saw that there was a coin on the top of one of the machines in the room which was taller than anyone in the room, no one could possibly see the top of it, and after the resuscitation, they got a ladder to check, and they did indeed find a coin exactly in the location he said it would be.

Do these kinds of experiences offer valid proof that there is a soul, distinct from the body, which survives after physical death?
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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They're pretty intriguing. On the other hand, there's the unaddressed mystery of how a soul could hear or see anything, since, you know, no senses.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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Here's a reputable source. The Magis Center, Father Robert Spitzger ... https://www.magiscenter.com/

after opening, scroll down 1/2 page and type in NDE (at search)

I hope this adds some material to think on
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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gherkin wrote: Thu Aug 24, 2023 11:09 pm They're pretty intriguing. On the other hand, there's the unaddressed mystery of how a soul could hear or see anything, since, you know, no senses.
it is similar to the question of why only some people have them and others don't: the Grace of God.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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Doom wrote: Fri Aug 25, 2023 12:53 pm
gherkin wrote: Thu Aug 24, 2023 11:09 pm They're pretty intriguing. On the other hand, there's the unaddressed mystery of how a soul could hear or see anything, since, you know, no senses.
it is similar to the question of why only some people have them and others don't: the Grace of God.
If you're thinking of the NDE's power as some kind of argument for the existence of spiritual souls, it would generally be unhelpful to invoke God to explain the experience, since relatively few people accept God who deny souls. So what I mean is that the apparent experience of a disembodied soul being spatially located and having as-if-sensory experiences provides a certain kind of grounds for doubt for the soul-agnostic.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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In fact, the remarkable thing about the experience is the number of people who have converted as a result of them. There have even been cases of children experiencing an NDE waking up and adopting new religious beliefs that were not taught to them by their parents and which their parents disapproved of, the point of ruling out natural explanations is precisely to prove that they are supernatural.

At any rate, the assumption that the soul separated from the body cannot see or perceive anything is an odd one and I'm not not sure what it is based on. Will we all be blind, deaf-mutes in heaven while we wait for the resurrection of the dead?
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

Post by Obi-Wan Kenobi »

It's based on the idea that the mind needs the bodily senses to get information. No body, no bodily senses. I see the logic but I'm not sure I like it or agree.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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But the entire value of the NDE is disproof of the idea that the brain is the same thing as the mind. So involving that idea to try to debunk it is frankly reverse logic.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

Post by Obi-Wan Kenobi »

That's not it. Everyone (at least in Catholic theology) agrees that the mind is not the same thing as the brain. But the mind does need the body for gaining information. Let's say someone goes blind because of damage to the optic nerve. That person's mind remains capable of sight, but it doesn't actually see (at least through that eye) because the body can't do it. So it is with the pickle's theory (which St. Thomas would agree with). The mind remains able to see, but it doesn't have a body to feed it the information necessary.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

Post by Obi-Wan Kenobi »

The pickle (and St. Thomas) would probably also argue that a disembodied mind lacks what is confusingly called "common sense," which is the ability to process disparate sensory images and form a single unified understanding of what's out there.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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But the fact remains that however it might be possible explained people who have NDE’s often recall the sensation of being out of body and seeing themselves and other things including traveling around and seeing things in other things. There have even been cases (and these are the most convincing ones) of people born blind who report somehow seeing things during out of body experiences and being able to accurately describe how things look, including the colors(!). How do they know what color is? Somehow they know.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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My limited experience with discussing NDE's with materialists is that they claim that somehow the senses "register" information even while the machinery records no brain activity, and this recorded information can then be "remembered" by the awakening person. It's a desperate expedient, to be sure, and it does nothing to dismiss points about the presence of knowledge the previously dead person wouldn't have had access to at all. But in response to this, the typical reaction is more of a "well, we can't explain it, but leaving it unexplained is simpler than positing souls to explain it." IOW, the value of NDE's for showing the existence of souls is real but like most other things very limited in the face of dogmatism.

Plus, there's the unexplained problem of how the disembodied soul would sense anything, because it lacks senses. We can say God supplies the phantasms, and whatnot, and that is certainly the truth if such events happen, but it's still something to take seriously as a concern. Sight is undeniably a physical phenomenon, at least in part. So if an essential part of that activity--the body, particularly the brain and the external sense organs--are not present at all, as in the case of the disembodied soul, we've got a problem.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

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Since we have no idea what a disembodied soul even IS, how can we possibly make assumptions about what it can and cannot do? That literally makes no sense.

As far as "x doesn't constitute evidence in the face of dogmatism" well, so what? We could say the same about fundamentalists who refuse to accept the evidence for evolution, or an old Earth, or the Big Bang, Or, hell, evidence for Transubstantiation. I have argued with atheists who came right out and said "So what if Jesus rose from the dead, it doesn't mean anything, all it means is that sometimes people can rise from the dead, so what? It doesn't say anything about God."

I have even had conversations where atheists get so stubborn about rejecting evidence for the historical existence of Jesus that I ask them if they believe it is possible to know anything about history "Do you believe George Washington existed? Do you believe the American Civil War happened?" and realizing that they are being put on the spot and not wanting to give an inch of ground answer "no". :shock:


I have heard people say that they will not believe in the existence of God even if they should witness the Second Coming, the Last Judgement, and get sentenced to hell. They said they would just spend all eternity convinced it was a dream or hallucination.

How can anyone possibly talk about anything with someone who has that level of crazy, irrational stubbornness? You can't, you just have to write them off and ignore everything they say.

Indeed we have been told to expect this level of crazy skepticism, "If anyone will not believe Moses and the prophets he will not believe even if someone should rise from the dead" I'm pretty sure he meant that literally.

We have to play the "reasonable man" standard, what would be likely to convince the reasonable man, not what is likely to convince the irrational crazy skeptic who will refuse to accept any evidence that might be presented no matter how strong. I believe the evidence is strong enough to convince the reasonable man, as for the crazy irrational skeptics, well, ignore them.
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Re: Are NDE's proof of survival after death?

Post by gherkin »

Doom wrote: Sat Aug 26, 2023 4:37 pm Since we have no idea what a disembodied soul even IS, how can we possibly make assumptions about what it can and cannot do? That literally makes no sense.
Well, we know that a disembodied soul is a human soul that is no longer, so to speak, connected with a human being. So we know quite a lot about it, since we know quite a lot about our souls and how they work via philosophy. You can, if you want to see whether it makes sense to talk about disembodied souls, consult St. Thomas Aquinas on the matter, since he wrote about it at some length. Everything I'm saying here is cribbed directly from him.
As far as "x doesn't constitute evidence in the face of dogmatism" well, so what?

It's contextual. You're asking what the status of NDE's as arguments for the soul is. I'm giving you some input based on my experience. Someone who is a materialist is unlikely to be moved. Some will be.

Right, that's how arguments tend to work. No surprise there. In that sense, NDE's are no better than other arguments for conclusions we might want to defend, and in my experience may be somewhat worse.
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