Near death experience of Howard Storm

[ignoramus]

Cecelia. This is exactly why most of us are agnostics.
We aren't afraid to NOT know. We won't be intellectually dishonest with ourselves and fill in any gaps of knowledge with popular superstition.

[robvalue]

Yup.

"I don't know" is perhaps the scariest phrase in the whole of the English language. Doctors are now finding some people are actually allergic to it, causing their face to blow up to ten times its normal size.

"Of course no one knows for sure, but [speculation not based on evidence]" is far more popular.

PS: This also brings up the problem of what "death" actually means. Being declared dead is a subjective value judgement. Being "actually dead" as in it's impossible you can come back to life from that point, means that if you do come back to life, you weren't dead.

[abaris]

Well, a couple of thngs.

If this was about Howard Stern and not some Howard Storm I never heard of, I might get mildly interested. Second, he's still there, obviously, going by the website, making some nice dosh cashing in on books. So he didn't die. He's there to write on some NDE and to make a dime.

[Alex K]

Abaris, seriously, the only reason I even opened this thread was because I misread the name. I really wanted to know what Howard Stern's NDE looks like.

[Homeless Nutter]

Hey everyone. I'm new the forum and wanted to talk about near death experiences. [...]

OK - it's utter bullsh*t and it shows how desperate religious people are for "evidence".

People dream. They also make sh*t up and lie, for attention. You have to be an idiot to believe hallucinations of an oxygen deprived brain are anything more than just that. Of course - there's no shortage of idiots around...

/thread

[pocaracas]

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

Very simply put: the story is just that - a story.

Tons of real world details are missing:
- Was he married before? yes, it says so right there, poca! Indeed he was... and now his wife the the wife of a minister or preacher or whatever he is... and is ok with that... The wife of a person who was very antagonistic towards religion is ok with remaining the wife of a preacher.... think about it...
- And we all know how appalling preachers finances are in the US... "Follow the money". But no mention of money is made in that article you posted... funny that...

- If he is truly convinced of what he says - his brain could have done it. NDEs and not DEs.... why is there not a single DE? Show me someone who was dead for 10 days, not someone who had a bit of a cough. Dreams happen, crazy weird dreams happen... even to people in comas! Most people in these situations report nothing. Some report crazy things... some report that they see themselves from the outside and all the whackos hone in on these few - that's called selection bias. Also, these that have a more spiritual content are very prone to represent the spirituality of the society where they come from - one more hint that it's their own brains at work.
So, if you cannot discard that it's just the brain doing what the brain does... why assume that this Storm person is providing a trustworthy account of reality?


EDIT:
Also, Howard Storm? as in a bastard from the Stormlands? Bastards are liars, all of them. It is known!

[Fidel_Castronaut]

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 ?]

Moderator Notice
If it is conducive to discussion points raised within the OP, yes. That said, we received no reports about it, hence this is the first time I've seen it. I would say it's fine as the OP is not trying to advertise or self promote, rather open an avenue of debate using the testimonial as the basis

[Catholic_Lady]

NDEs are NDEs, not DEs. They indicate nothing except that oxygen-starved brains do weird things.There is no evidence that any of that goes on "outside the brain". There is however, evidence that it doesn't

But our brains do weird things when we sleep, too. And yet when we wake up from a dream, we know it's a dream. Staunch atheists don't turn Christians from having a dream. Another thing is, why would people who are strong atheists be having dream like visions of God and Jesus in their heads when they are unconscious? And furthermore, why would they have dreams of God and Jesus being goodness and love? It seems that first of all, most atheists think that if God and Jesus do exist, they are evil anyway. Or at least uncaring.  

Obviously, something happened to these people that made them change overnight in such a drastic way, from becoming atheists who hate religion to becoming Christians. That's huge, almost supernatural in itself. Can a mere "dream" do that? Could it do that to you? 

Now, I'm not saying I believe all this. I have no dog in this fight. My faith does not rely on strangers' personal experiences, and some parts of this story kind of contradict my own beliefs. All I'm saying is the possibilities may be worth an objective look and some consideration. Because it is very strange indeed.

[Whateverist]

Yeah, it is always fun to gawk at weird shit.  Thanks for reminding me.  

[pocaracas]

NDEs are NDEs, not DEs. They indicate nothing except that oxygen-starved brains do weird things.There is no evidence that any of that goes on "outside the brain". There is however, evidence that it doesn't

But our brains do weird things when we sleep, too. And yet when we wake up from a dream, we know it's a dream. Staunch atheists don't turn Christians from having a dream. Another thing is, why would people who are strong atheists be having dream like visions of God and Jesus in their heads when they are unconscious? And furthermore, why would they have dreams of God and Jesus being goodness and love? It seems that first of all, most atheists think that if God and Jesus do exist, they are evil anyway. Or at least uncaring.  

Obviously, something happened to these people that made them change overnight in such a drastic way, from becoming atheists who hate religion to becoming Christians. That's huge, almost supernatural in itself. Can a mere "dream" do that? Could it do that to you? 

Now, I'm not saying I believe all this. I have no dog in this fight. My faith does not rely on strangers' personal experiences, and some parts of this story kind of contradict my own beliefs. All I'm saying is the possibilities may be worth an objective look and some consideration. Because it is very strange indeed.

Certainly, people dream... and weird things happen in some people's dreams.
This can be a perfectly reasonable way to dream into belief in demons.

Perhaps these NDE people don't start out as they become advertised, after the fact.... Remember House's number one rule: everybody lies.

Perhaps what happens to them when they're in that state is, afterwards, rationalized and, due to being imbued in the society that they are, their brains find that societal religious explanation for the "experience", given that they can't attribute a non-religious significance to it.
You must admit that there are many more people claiming to just see a white light under such circumstances. Perhaps those others are dressing up the white light with the baggage of their surroundings, no?