Hey everyone. I'm new the forum and wanted to talk about near death experiences. Personally for me information from NDEs changed my life for the better. I think unlike religion, they offer better evidence of the spiritual realms and existence of God. Hoping we can have a civil discussion about it. I'm open to your views and hope we can reciprocate the respect for each other.

I would say the most amazing experiences that I have read was from Howard Storm. He was an atheist confident that nothing happens after life and his life was completely changed after his death experience. I met Howard and listened to his story, and want to share with you all here.

Please read through the short testimonial and let me know what you think so we can talk about it. There is a lot more infomation I can post, but this would be the place to start.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/no...storm.html

How would he know what happens after death, he didn't die, that's why they are called NEAR death experiences.

(January 28, 2016 at 8:38 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: How would he know what happens after death, he didn't die, that's why they are called NEAR death experiences.

Fair enough, yes he's alive today, but please read the testimonial and let me know what you think.

Do we let newcomers post links now ?



[BTW, I've been here long enough to make over 12,000 posts, and I've never figured out how to do a poll, we have a someone figure it out their second day here ?]

(January 28, 2016 at 8:39 pm)scoobysnack Wrote:

(January 28, 2016 at 8:38 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: How would he know what happens after death, he didn't die, that's why they are called NEAR death experiences.

Fair enough, yes he's alive today, but please read the testimonial and let me know what you think.

I read it, sounds like a lot of garbage. Its the typical "I used to be an atheist" Christian story that is only compelling to believers.

What part of his experience is something that 'could not have occurred within his brain' ?

I'm highly suspicious of Storm's story:

1. For someone who claims to have been an atheist, he seriously mischaracterizes atheism.

2. He claims to have used 'rage' to control people around. Raging at people is a phenomenally ineffective method of control.

3. His claim to have seen 'at least 80 new primary colors' is simply nonsense. He doesn't seem to know what a primary colour is.

4. In almost the same breath, he describes himself as 'perfectly content' and 'distressed', two emotional states that are mutually exclusive.

5. His comments on the history of war are really just appallingly stupid.

I'm sure Mr. Storm is a very nice man (apart from his fetish for religion), but his account smacks of either lunacy or deliberate falsehood. I'll be charitable and credit him with the former.

Boru

(January 28, 2016 at 8:47 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote:

(January 28, 2016 at 8:39 pm)scoobysnack Wrote: Fair enough, yes he's alive today, but please read the testimonial and let me know what you think.

I read it, sounds like a lot of garbage. Its the typical "I used to be an atheist" Christian story that is only compelling to believers.

Well thank you for reading it. For me I used to be a very angry person, and thought about suicide and didn't really believe myself, but wanted to find out what would happen when I died, and this was one of the stories I came across. This was 20 years ago, and my life has been better ever since, and changed my path and understanding about what life is.

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(January 28, 2016 at 8:49 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: What part of his experience is something that 'could not have occurred within his brain' ?

There is the whole theory that DMT excretes from the pineal gland into the brain as the brain dies, and creates hallucinations, which I've read about. What NDEs and out of body experiences suggest is that consciousness can exist outside of the brain or body. Please read the story and let me know what you think. There are also veridical NDEs which I'll talk about later.

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(January 28, 2016 at 8:52 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I'm highly suspicious of Storm's story:

1.  For someone who claims to have been an atheist, he seriously mischaracterizes atheism.

2.  He claims to have used 'rage' to control people around.  Raging at people is a phenomenally ineffective method of control.

3.  His claim to have seen 'at least 80 new primary colors' is simply nonsense.  He doesn't seem to know what a primary colour is.

4.  In almost the same breath, he describes himself as 'perfectly content' and 'distressed', two emotional states that are mutually exclusive.

5.  His comments on the history of war are really just appallingly stupid.

I'm sure Mr. Storm is a very nice man (apart from his fetish for religion), but his account smacks of either lunacy or deliberate falsehood.  I'll be charitable and credit him with the former.

Boru

Thanks for reading it. I don't expect everyone to just change the way they view the world. I would say this is his personal experience. To say that all atheists think the same thing would be false, as everyone has their own perception, so to say mis-characterize atheism would be the same as a Muslim saying another who identifies as a Muslim as being false since they don't believe as they do. As far as the colors, that's a common theme from NDEs that people see another color spectrum than they have seen on earth which is the visible white light spectrum. I suppose you could consider it being able to see more than white light spectrum, such as xrays or ultraviolet. Bees see the world in the ultraviolet spectrum for example, so flowers look very differently to them than they do to us, and of course they don't know anything different than what they see to perceive their world. Either way I understand perception of reality is a sum of ones experiences so we will all form a different conclusion, and I'm not here to say anyone is wrong. I just wanted to start a dialog to talk about this subject.

(January 28, 2016 at 8:55 pm)scoobysnack Wrote:

(January 28, 2016 at 8:49 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: What part of his experience is something that 'could not have occurred within his brain' ?

There is the whole theory that DMT excretes from the pineal gland into the brain as the brain dies, and creates hallucinations, which I've read about. What NDEs and out of body experiences suggest is that consciousness can exist outside of the brain or body. Please read the story and let me know what you think. There are also veridical NDEs which I'll talk about later.

The case of out of body experiences is equivocal; there is nothing about OBEs that couldn't just as easily occur within the body. OBEs 'suggest' consciousness can exist outside the brain in the same way that dreams of flying suggest we can fly. The experience is not evidence that the experience is veridical.

Veridical NDEs are a different matter, and the number of them is so few that it's near impossible to conclude anything based on them. The case of Pam Reynolds can be debated at length, and that's about the best it gets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTFVMMCwsss