It’s rare for anyone to be able to describe a near-death experience. Let me say first what did not happen. There was nothing supernatural about it. No “tunnel of light.” No feeling of rising out of my body. In fact, I have rarely felt so strongly connected to my body. My body was dying and it was taking me with it. It was an intensely physical sensation. I have never believed in the immortality of the soul, and my experience at Chautauqua seemed to confirm that. The “me,” whatever or whoever it was, was certainly on the edge of death along with the body that contained it.
~Salman Rushdie
~Salman Rushdie
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"