Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), Souls, and Atheism

[Epimethean]

I'll tell you what it has to do with atheism. Fuck-all, which is like most stuff that theists dream up.

[The Grand Nudger]

--If you read my OP carefully,

I did. Care to take a crack at anything in my post? Have you thought the whole "afterlife" thing through? Have any of the "researchers"? Surely, if this is science, somebody somewhere will be hard at work on these sorts of issues? When deciding between "afterlife" and "understood effects of stress and trauma", why would you choose to invoke the shadow world? One is simple, has explanatory power, and does not contradict our current understanding of the subject. The other is massively complicated, not very well fleshed out, has no explanatory power, and either directly contradicts or is unsupported by our current understanding of the subject and many others as well.

[Epimethean]

The best attempt in a quasi-academic setting I have seen is that of Gary Schwartz, and, despite the enthusiasm of his adherents (mostly-SURPRISE-among the religious subset of the population), he's been pretty thoroughly debunked, too. Hasn't stopped him from becoming wealthy on the dime of his fans, though, so he fits right in with how organized religion works.