Dead for 45 minutes; an interesting near-death experience

[bennyboy]

Not only that but if you were following Christianity you will see Christ, if you were following Buddha you will see Buddha, if you were following Shiva you will see Shiva if you were into spirituality you may perceive God as a bright light, if you never believe in religion or spirituality but you were ok then you may perceive God in different manner.

It's almost as if the mind is simply creating an experience from things it already experienced and/or believed. Imagine that.

The mind does the same thing when you see a tree. But this doesn't undermine the symbolic validity of the tree.

As an explanation of an existent being, the religious mythologies are probably a big fail. However, as symbolism for things that people care about-- compassion, selflessness, hope in hard times, etc.-- they can still have value. A dream or vision of your cultural symbol of choice isn't only a superstitious mental weakness. It's a moment when your core beliefs take on an emotional reality, rather than just being oft-repeated lip service. The problem comes when people take those moments of symbolic truth, and ascribe them to reality: "There REALLY is a heaven, because I experienced it, so I'm going to give away all my money and live in a cave" is not a good response to a vision of Jesus carrying you up to heaven, IMO. Or worse: "Only Christians can be saved and go to heaven. So if necessary, we must threaten non-Christians with death in the hope of saving their souls, and might as well kill them if they obviously won't ever come to accept Jesus."

So in short-- experiences carry their own value, and this value is subjective. But reality doesn't care about our subjective valuations, and may not play along with the beliefs that get attached to those moments.