Near Death Experiences

[Cake]

You know, there's a long held view that when someone says something like "I didn't believe in ghosts, but then I saw one and now I'm a believer", they are being a bit disingenuous.

The fact the book is called "proof of heaven" leads me to believe he is very much religious, and took little convincing.

If someone genuinely doesn't believe in something, they don't tend to change their entire belief system based on a single tenuous instance/experience. Especially a neurosurgeon. The logical first step would be "oh, I had a really weird near death experience. As a neurosurgeon, I'm going to look into the neurological signals sent as you die and see if there is something that causes these weird hallucinations". They don't immediately go "I SAW GOD!!!!".

I don't believe in ghosts. If I saw "something", I wouldn't say I saw a ghost, by the very nature I don't believe in them. It would take multiple people witnessing the same thing with me, where there is no other possible explanation, for me to consider changing my view.


Edit: some info from wiki.

The book was a commercial success but also was the subject of scientific critique in relation to neurology, such as medically induced coma and brain death.[1][10][11] A 2013 article in Esquire magazine refuted claims made in the book.[1][10] The doctor who treated Alexander stated that certain details might not be true, such as claims Alexander made about speaking clearly at times he would have been intubated.[1] The Esquire article also reported that Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits and that he settled five malpractice suits in Virginia within a period of ten years.[1][12]

Among the discrepancies, was that Alexander had written the cause of his coma was bacterial meningitis, despite his doctor telling the reporter that he had been conscious and hallucinating before being placed in a medically induced coma.[1][13] In a statement responding to the criticism, Alexander maintained that his representation of the experience was truthful and that he believed in the message contained in his book. He also claimed that the Esquire article "cherry-picked" information about his past to discredit his accounts of the event.[13]

Proof of Heaven was also criticized by scientists, including Sam Harris, who described Alexander's NDE account on his blog as "alarmingly unscientific", and that claims of experiencing visions while his cerebral cortex was shut down demonstrated a failure to acknowledge existing brain science with little evidence prove otherwise.[14] Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks agreed with Harris, and argued that Alexander had failed to recognize that the experience could have been the result of his cortex returning to full function at the outset of his coma, rather than a supernatural experience.[15] In 2012 Alexander responded to critics in a second Newsweek article,[16] where he said that he vividly remembers having periods of hallucination and explains that there was a massive difference between them and his 'fully immersive' visions of the afterlife. Alexander describes the hallucinations in his book, saying that they were disjointed and centred around both random events and his doctors. He then compares them to the "hyper-real" experience of the afterlife, and says they do not match up. He also made a prediction in his book that secular critics, which included himself before his coma, would attempt to discredit him and his experience without looking into it properly.

The word heaven refers to religion only to those suffering from religious conditioning but if it’s been critiqued on Wiki it must be true… Science and scientists, eh

 

[trueblue84]

The word heaven refers to religion only to those suffering from religious conditioning but if it’s been critiqued on Wiki it must be true… Science and scientists, eh

Not critiqued on wiki. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia with references to the journals and articles where it was actually critiqued.

The fella is a fraud. His "investigation" in to the afterlife was to sell a book.

 

[Tipp blue]

Years ago when working on a building site, myself and a work mate were leaving the house we were working in to head to the shop, no hard hats as we left the house there was about a meter between us and one of the heavy 4 foot scaffolding bars landed between us, the lad taking down the scaffolding just dropped is down over the exit as he was dismantling it, a second either way and one of us were dead of had major life changing injuries. That's the nearest to a near death experience I've ever had.

 

[cronullasharks]

Had an electric shock from a guitar amp that threw me across the garage and I landed on the opposite wall with my arm going up and down.
For all I know I could have died and this is the afterlife.

My mates cousin who was in the year below us died when we were in high school from playing his electric guitar during a storm. Not sure of the exact details but it was a pretty horrific time as another kid in that year got killed in a hit and run that they never caught the driver a fortnight after that.

 

[Cake]

Not critiqued on wiki. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia with references to the journals and articles where it was actually critiqued.

The fella is a fraud. His "investigation" in to the afterlife was to sell a book.

Of course he’s a fraud, same as thousands (millions?) of others.

I’m not trying to convince you of anything, I’m not being ‘off’ with you when I say it doesn’t matter to me, it’s not personal, your view is your view same as the scientists. I think he mentions in the book about the majority of his fellow scientists sticking to their views - hard to let go of a lifetimes’ belief and conditioning.