Near death experience of Howard Storm

[Catholic_Lady]

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.

Why do you think atheists in India have NDE's involving Vishnu?

I have no idea.

[Old Baby]

Also, I have my doubts that Storm is a fraud. I think he probably really did have an experience that changed him. It's more likely that he just filled in some of the missing details to make his story more compelling. The idea that he is secretly an atheist scamming people seems much less probable to me than the more likely explanation, that he's a believer who was probably an atheist for the wrong reasons. It's certainly possible he could be exaggerating his prior atheism to sweeten the story. Preachers tend to exaggerate for effect. That doesn't mean they aren't sincere.

[Catholic_Lady]

Yeah, I think that's the least probable theory.

To me, it was either an extremely realistic hallucination, or it was what he said it was. I wouldn't doubt that he could have embellished a bit, too.

[Ivan Denisovich]

Ok, so we both agree that if he really was an atheist, then what he did with his life afterwards is very unlikely to have been a lie/scam.

 

If by atheist you understand someone who simply not believe and not is "angry on god" or something like that then yes.

But if not scam then I would guess hallucination or brain damage.

I've been googling some stuff about him to see if he really was an atheist or not.

He claim that he was. But considering nonsense about controlling others with rage I think that he would not recognize atheism if it would kick him in the ass. It's part of atheist stereotype along with shit like not wanting to believe to escape punishment for sin or other similar nonsense.

[Silver]

I do judge books by their covers, and I do not trust his face.

It is akin to a Dr. Phil face, and I do not trust that man either.

[Mister Agenda]

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?

Perhaps you are right.

It just seems like someone who is a strong atheist would *want* to try their best to attribute non religious significance to their experience. It seems that would be their immediate, go to rationale. At least this is what I've gathered from talking to all of you. This is why I am considering the possibility that what happened to them was indeed something very very real. SO real that not even extremely skeptical, strong atheists were be able to "rationalize" their way out of it once it happened to them.

It's entirely possible that it's the nature of NDEs to have a profound effect on the person's viewpoints, the way some hallucinogens do. But as with hallucinogens, what the experiences are and what the long term effects are, vary widely.

Keep Hebrews 9:27 in mind.

[Alex K]

CL,

Who knows what this kind of deprivation does to people's minds. It's *not a dream* either, during dreams the brain is in principle fully functional and when we wake up, the usual mechanisms for reality checking do their thing. We evolved to be functional in the real world despite having dreams. In these extreme experiences, the brain does not operate properly. You can't compare the two except to note that dreams show us that our mind is capable of astonishing fabrications.

Right, so if this happened to you (your brain fabricating an incident with God and Jesus during near death), you would wake up and rationalize it, right? You would wake up and at least eventually come to the conclusion that it was just your brain doing weird things. Correct?

It's hard to tell what I would do under such circumstances. I hope that I would still possess the skeptical faculties to understand that there is a perfectly ordinary explanation and that invoking the " supernatural " is not justified. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw Jesus in an NDE though, I was raised in a protestant environment and half my music consumption is Christian sacred works. Odds are my brain will play the St. Matthew's passion in the background if I ever have an NDE

[Alex K]

I do have a serious question for all of you.

Would you WANT this story to be real?

Would it make you happy if it were? Or would you still hate the idea of God and afterlife even after reading this story which paints God and the afterlife in such a positive light?

Would you rather it all be a farce, and that we all just die when we die and there is no loving God?

I am not one of those atheists who will tell you how blasé they are about the whole death thing. I find the idea of not existing any more (or my loved ones) very disturbing and would be unspeakably relieved to find that there is an afterlife or some such scenario, as long as it has a chance to be an overall positive experience.

[WinterHold]

Thank you for the interesting topic.

My objection on NDEs, is that they're not unified. Christians see Jesus, Muslims see Prophet Mohammed or somebody of importance in Islamic literature...etc.
It's always about the person & his views, and religion of choice.

An atheist might have a part of his brain that is convinced with God, a part of his subconscious, and the experience does nothing but trigger that part of the memory, to visit him in a dream when he's in a coma.

Ah, it is proved that the brain produces a substance -can't recall its name- that lessens the pain of death; and with it hallucinations appear. So I wouldn't trust the testimony of a person who came back from a coma so easily.

[Mister Agenda]

I do have a serious question for all of you.

Would you WANT this story to be real?

Would it make you happy if it were? Or would you still hate the idea of God and afterlife even after reading this story which paints God and the afterlife in such a positive light?

Would you rather it all be a farce, and that we all just die when we die and there is no loving God?

I don't hate the idea of God. I don't hate the idea of an afterlife. I just don't find them credible. I hate the idea of children being born with birth defects, but it doesn't make any sense to not believe in something even if I did hate it, if that's what is actually happening. The reason I don't believe NDE's actually involve people leaving their bodies is that there is evidence against that being the case and only stories to say otherwise. I don't believe the NDE claims because I'm a skeptic, not because I'm an atheist.

If, say, ghosts were proven to be a real phenomena and actually spirits, I would re-evaluate all my positions concerning the paranormal and supernatural.

Realizing that 'what I would rather' has absolutely no bearing on what is, is an important reason for me being a skeptic. I don't see how 'just dying' makes 'it all a farce'.