Near death experience of Howard Storm

[drfuzzy]

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 If that is your definition of short, I'd hate to read a long testimonial.

Anyway, apart from the dude claiming to be an atheist, I don't see any indication of him ever being one. The article shows no logical thinking on his part or any attempt at rationalizing the event, if it did really happen.

But NDE, if you actually look into it, is hugely affected by a person's culture and environment, just like other occurrences like alien abductions. Hence I don't see how you can conclude a spritual evidence from it.

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 There is a entire book about his story, but that was the short version. The book obviously has more details which may answer some of your questions. I could suppose one could assume he was never an atheist, I've never done a background check on him. I did meet him when he came to my city to speak, and listened to his story, and he gave me a hug after I told him how he helped saved my life from suicide. He seemed sincere, and even cried a little while talking about the beings that tore him apart and while he was in the void, before calling out to Jesus, and then cried a little more telling his story of how he was so ashamed meeting Jesus after not believing in him and thinking anyone that did was a complete moron. He was so amazed that Jesus would forgive him for all the bad things he had done in his life which were shown to him in his life review, with all his secrets exposed. 

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 If you want you can read countless near death experiences from different religions, cultures, gays, atheists etc. I posted this one because it was one of the more complete ones. The more you read about them, you start to see the patterns, and get the bigger picture. This website has a lot to check out if you wanted to read about other cultures:

(I only wanted to quote the one line!  I'm still having trouble getting this quote feature mastered!)
I read about them plenty when I was struggling to maintain some semblance of belief in a deity.  I even attended a class on OBE's.  But at the end of my searching, I found that I had to relegate these things to the same place the concept of god was going:  highly improbable.  (Actually, with OBE's, the lack of any real confirmation of success came pretty quickly.  I mean, there are folks who claim that they can travel out of their bodies to wherever they want, at will.  That's very easily test-able.)  
     So no, thank you.  I accept the medical reasons why people would have similar "dreams" when the neurotransmitters in their brains are shutting down.  Apparently with some people these dreams take on a religious significance (depending upon the religion of their parents) and have a psychological impact.  I don't accept these stories as proof that an afterlife exists.

[Angrboda]

The thing with NDEs is if you study them in mass, you would form a different conclusion than reading a few, at least from the perspective of the NDE. A common theme and message that comes back is the experience will be different for everyone, just as the experience here is different for everyone, and the beings that people meet give answers to the questions. One answer is that they provide you with the experience that you need, whether you need to meet your deceased relitives for comfort, or need time alone in the void for contemplation before moving on.

Subjects of Indian near-death experiences frequently report being taken to the after-death realm by functionaries who then discover that a mistake has been made and send the person back, whereupon he or she revives.

http://www.near-death.com/religion/hinduism.html

You're seeing what you want to see in these stories.

[scoobysnack]

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.

Have to ask what does it mean to be an atheist for the right reasons? What are the right reasons?

I'm going through the posts, and have noticed a pattern so far. The main one is that people are claiming he wasn't a true atheist because he now believes in God, and is either a liar that never was an atheist, or not a true atheist. I would say that everyone can change, and to say that if you are an atheist you have to be one for life, is almost like faith of religious people where nothing can effect your belief system.

What's interesting is that many religious people disagree with NDEs because they don't fit into their faith. Not all, but many that I've talked to at least. NDEs are something that can unite many belief systems and people from all walks of life.

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The thing with NDEs is if you study them in mass, you would form a different conclusion than reading a few, at least from the perspective of the NDE. A common theme and message that comes back is the experience will be different for everyone, just as the experience here is different for everyone, and the beings that people meet give answers to the questions. One answer is that they provide you with the experience that you need, whether you need to meet your deceased relitives for comfort, or need time alone in the void for contemplation before moving on.

Subjects of Indian near-death experiences frequently report being taken to the after-death realm by functionaries who then discover that a mistake has been made and send the person back, whereupon he or she revives.

http://www.near-death.com/religion/hinduism.html

You're seeing what you want to see in these stories.

On the contrary. When I first read this years ago, I was suicidal, and wanted to think there was nothing after life so I could end the pain. What I found was quite a surprise, and especially reading the NDEs of suicide attempts I came to the conclusion suicide was the wrong answer, and then I started reading dozens of NDEs, and they changed the way I view life. I wasn't an atheist at the time. I grew up Catholic, but fought it, and didn't take much of it seriously. That's my personal story at least.

Here's some failed suicide NDE's and the stories of what people brought back, also changed their lives.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/su...earch.html

[Excited Penguin]

I feel really sorry to hear that. But at the same time, there's plenty of reasons to want to live without fear of burning in hell if you commit suicide if that's what went through your mind at the time. Otherwise I can't quite make the connection between believing in this stuff and... getting out of that dark moment in your past.

[scoobysnack]

I imagine the guy who this happened with was a lot like you. He is described as being very anti religion, very unbelieving, and only using the word "God" as a dirty word. It would definitely make me pause if anyone who is anything like you all of a sudden changed completely.

For the record, the only people we know of describing him as that way is himself and people who heard it from him  or have something to gain from supporting his version. About all there is of him on the internet is his story. I'm not much for testimonials of supernatural events, but some testimonials of people who knew him before and after without a dog in the race would be very helpful in convincing me that at least the 'I used to be a mean old unhappy atheist and now I'm a happy and friendly devout Christian' account of his experience is accurate.

He talks about atheists and atheism like the only thing he knows on the topic is stereotypes, and while I don't think he was a Christian, I do suspect he's embellishing his irreligiosity to punch up his story.

If you really wanted to know, you could email him. His email address is on his website. I've emailed him before to thank him.

Seriously contemplate how you would talk about atheism if you turned away from atheism. How many people who didn't know you would believe what you are saying?

I'm not here to push anything. I realize we are all individuals and form our own conclusions. I just wanted to give people information to contemplate.

[The Grand Nudger]

People communicate their past experiences through the filter of their current worldview.  His comments aren't at all surprising and are wholly representative of a well storied christian evangelical narrative.

[Catholic_Lady]

I don't mean to insult anyone, but what I'm saying is 100% true based on my own experience. From what I have seen here it does seem most of you are hostile to religion. And many of you (don't know if it's most) are hostile to religious people.

What I was saying about Catholics here was 100% true based on my own experience, too. If anything, I was being kind, considering that Ronedee is the only other Catholic here who comes to my mind. However, when not making a point about over-generalizing, I try to be careful not to over generalize. Some posters may be Catholics without me knowing about it. I may be misjudging the Catholics I encounter here because of bias or just the difficulty of knowing someone's heart over the internet. Or the simple fact that making bald statements in a medium devoid of body language and tone can feel like hostility.

At any rate, you know who is likely to be insulted by your generalization? The people who don't fit it. Even if it were actually a fair assessment. Not to mention that even bringing it up sounds like an insinuation that the people you are having a conversation with aren't having it in good faith because they are biased against your position. That's pretty useless isn't it? Especially if you're conversing with someone you know doesn't fit your description of the usual suspects.

By the way, I'm not as peeved as I may sound, I'm taking the opportunity to make a point that applies to everyone, no matter their position. I'm not peeved, I'm pedantic.

I don't think it's a generalization to say "most here", when that has been my honest observation/experience here. When I think of a generalization I think of a phrase like "Atheists are _____" rather than using words like most or many. Those words specifically imply that it does not apply to everyone.

Again, sorry if I insulted you (and btw, you are not in that group of people), but if all these people I'm thinking of are in fact not hostile towards religion then heck, they sure fooled me!

[Catholic_Lady]

I'm giddy all of a sudden. I think CL is slowly, but surely becoming an atheist .

LOL! It could happen, but we would lose one of the most reasonable theists we have, and I would miss that.

Hey, thanks! 

Lol and no, I don't think it will... 

[scoobysnack]

Ok, so it might not have been a dream, who knows, but in any case I think it was something close to a dream. Whatever it was, subjective experiences like that don't prove a thing. Until a few decades ago everyone thought lucid dreams didn't even exist and were a mere curiosity reported by some dreamers until some people figured out a way to communicate with a lucid dreamer while he was dreaming and study his brain activity while he was doing different things in the dream. Incidentally, the same activity was reported as if they were doing those things while awake. But notice none of this demonstrates the reality of the dreams' worlds' beyond the dreamers' minds. The same will be for NDE's, I reckon, if they're ever explained.

I think there's a mechanism that lets us keep our dream life and waking life separate that might not be working in the case of NDEs. Although I usually have no trouble distinguishing dreams from reality, I've had particularly vivid dreams just before waking where I've had to engage my brain to sort things out for a few seconds. I don't think as a species we could have afforded to have had that as our experience every time we woke up.

I have a sleeping disorder called sleep paralysis which results in night terrors, which are different than nightmares, because your eyes are open, but your body is paralyzed. It usually happens when I'm just about to fall alseep, and I'll usually hear a buzzing, and it feels like my soul is leaving my body, which is the best way I can describe it. I'll see some seriously crazy stuff, but realize (or hope haha) it's all in my brain. I'd describe it further if you want but those are some seriously weird experiences. There's a great documentary about it called The nightmare http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3317522/

Point is I've had these experiences but I understand them to be in my brain. I realize the brain can do a lot more than what we think since we only use a small percent of our brain. 

Another story is sleepwalking, and lucid dreaming. My cousin does both. One time I was staying at my cousins house when we were kids, and my cousin Eric and I heard some banging coming from my other cousins room in the middle of the night so we went to investigate. We found him in his underwear pulling cloths out of his closet and packing a suit case, while mumbling nonsense haha. The next morning we told him about and it and he had no memory what so ever. Supposedly it happens to him a lot according to his now wife.

[Excited Penguin]

I think there's a mechanism that lets us keep our dream life and waking life separate that might not be working in the case of NDEs. Although I usually have no trouble distinguishing dreams from reality, I've had particularly vivid dreams just before waking where I've had to engage my brain to sort things out for a few seconds. I don't think as a species we could have afforded to have had that as our experience every time we woke up.

I have a sleeping disorder called sleep paralysis which results in night terrors, which are different than nightmares, because your eyes are open, but your body is paralyzed. It usually happens when I'm just about to fall alseep, and I'll usually hear a buzzing, and it feels like my soul is leaving my body, which is the best way I can describe it. I'll see some seriously crazy stuff, but realize (or hope haha) it's all in my brain. I'd describe it further if you want but those are some seriously weird experiences. There's a great documentary about it called The nightmare http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3317522/

Point is I've had these experiences but I understand them to be in my brain. I realize the brain can do a lot more than what we think since we only use a small percent of our brain. 

Another story is sleepwalking, and lucid dreaming. My cousin does both. One time I was staying at my cousins house when we were kids, and my cousin Eric and I heard some banging coming from my other cousins room in the middle of the night so we went to investigate. We found him in his underwear pulling cloths out of his closet and packing a suit case, while mumbling nonsense haha. The next morning we told him about and it and he had no memory what so ever. Supposedly it happens to him a lot according to his now wife.

I'm not sure, but I think you can reliably transform your SP episodes into lucid dreams via the WILD method. You should look into it at the very least.