Many of the people I love most in this world are committed believers, including a Catholic Priest. Yet I remain skeptical to the point that “atheist” is as good a label for my world view as any. So, if someone I respected as an atheist had a NDE and converted to some kind of religious belief, I don't know that I would respect them any less. I would, in fact, be intrigued by their experience and interested in their interpretation of that experience. But it would remain their experience, not mine. Though none of the people I love have had a NDE they all claim real experiences with god. (I am the only one in the group who has ever been desperately close to being dead, and I don't have any recollection of the event at all.) Their experiences are also not my experiences.
That being said, I am an ex-christian fundamentalist; and have in my own history experiences of god. I interpret those experience differently now of course; but I don't pretend they never happened. They fit easily into the cosmos as I understand it, one without a god. A near death experience that changes someone's world view to one of faith fits into that cosmos as well.
That being said, I am an ex-christian fundamentalist; and have in my own history experiences of god. I interpret those experience differently now of course; but I don't pretend they never happened. They fit easily into the cosmos as I understand it, one without a god. A near death experience that changes someone's world view to one of faith fits into that cosmos as well.
