Near death experience of Howard Storm

[Excited Penguin]

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Let's take a look at everything Mr. Storm says:

This was the big nothing, the big blackout, the one you never wake up from, the end of existence. I had absolute certainty that there was nothing beyond this life – because that was how really smart people understood it.

And here already we have something that calls into question if Howard Storm was really an Atheist.  Not just a 'strong' atheist mind you.  But an Atheist at all.  He's basing his 'absolute certainty' of there being nothing in the afterlife on an appeal to experts.  A logical fallacy.  "that's how really smart people understood it."  That's not an atheist.  None of us stopped believing because some 'really smart people' thought that way.  This reeks of a theist who doesn't understand why atheists don't believe.

To my surprise I was standing up next to the bed, and I was looking at my body laying in the bed. My first reaction was, "This is crazy! I can't be standing here looking down at myself. That's not possible."

I've heard similar stories.  A teacher of mine in High School (a muslim for the record) had a similar experience.  She didn't go to hell btw.  Nor did she experience Jesus or anything else.  In fact she didn't experience anything outside of what she described as an out of body experience. 

He didn't react. I wanted this to be a dream, and I kept saying to myself, "This has got to be a dream." But I knew that it wasn't a dream

He never really gives consideration to this whole experience being a dream.  Neither during the experience, nor afterwards.  How can one be sure that it's not a dream?  I've been in dreams before where weird things happen, and then think "This isn't a dream!"  Only to wake up later and discover I was wrong.  It's unusual for him to realize so quickly that he's not dreaming, and never give it any consideration. 

Asking, again, who they were, I asked them if they were doctors and nurses. They responded, "Quick, come see. You'll find out."

This sounds like bad writing.  "Quick, come see.  You'll find out."  It sounds like something someone would write in a bad fanfiction.  Not how anybody or anything would actually speak.  In fact the next few sentences are more examples of bad writing, with him repeating himself constantly.  This signifies to me that he's making it up.  He repeats the information constantly.  Here's some examples:

with some reluctance I stepped into the hallway, and in the hallway I was in a fog, or a haze. It was a light-colored haze. It wasn't a heavy haze

They were more like silhouettes, or shapes, and as I moved toward them they backed off into the haze. As I tried to get close to them to identify them, they quickly withdrew deeper into the fog.

I repeatedly asked them where we were going, and they responded, "Hurry up, you'll find out."

 

They wouldn't answer anything. The only response was insisting that I hurry up and follow them.

Next up!

They began to make jokes about my bare rear end which wasn't covered by my hospital dicky

If people had souls, and they weren't tangible... why would they wear clothes?  This is perhaps the biggest hole in his story.  If you have an out of body experience, why would the clothes that you're wearing come with you?  That simply doesn't make any sense.  Not from any logical standpoint. 

It seemed that I could hear them warn the aggressive ones to be careful or I would be frightened away.

Another example of bad writing.  (Sorry my husband writes, and he's got me up to date on the big dos and don'ts).  It SEEMED that he could hear them?  Well obviously he DID hear them, because he repeated what they said.  He couldn't do that if it only SEEMED he could hear them.  And again, he just goes along with it.  He doesn't turn back to go to the hospital room, try to jump into his body, or anything else.  He just follows these mysterious beings he can't see as if he fully trusts them.

Whenever I would get one off me, there were five more to replace the one.

How would five replace one?  There's only so much room.  I mean let's say there were originally six around him.  He knocks two off.  How do 14 now fit around him, and why didn't fourteen fit around him before?  Keep in mind they were described as human beings, so I presume they were human sized.

While they screamed and yelled obscenities, they also began backing away from me as if I were poison.

It seems odd that these 'demons' or whatever yell obscenities.  Or that they speak English at all mind you.  But okay let's say they do speak english.  Why Obscenities? Our language evolves over time.  Seems like an odd thing to do for a 'demon' because there's really no such thing as a 'bad word'.  All words are just words. 

heard very clearly, once again in my own voice, something that I had learned in nursery Sunday School. It was the little song, "Jesus loves me, yes I know ..." and it kept repeating

A song he had heard before.  The hymn was written in 1860.  Seems like a strange choice out of all the hymns for them to be singing.  Why one particular hymn that likely would have no meaning to Jesus or anyone else, or at least no special meaning except perhaps to him.  And if it had special meaning to him, then he probably wasn't an atheist.  I don't know about anyone else, but there are no hymns that are special t me.

The light conveyed to me that it loved me in a way that I can't begin to express. It loved me in a way that I had never known that love could possibly be. He was a concentrated field of energy, radiant in splendor indescribable, except to say goodness and love. This was more loving than one can imagine.

He describes things as indescribable twice here, to try to convey that he couldn't be imagining it.  He clearly underestimates the power of the brain. 

How many times in my life had I denied and scoffed at the reality before me, What incredible intellectual arrogance to use the name as an insult

Yeah... sorry.  But I'm definitely seeing this guy as nothing more than a liar.  He 'denied the reality before him'?  Really?  That doesn't sound like someone who is an atheist.  He's not confused at all about this, but readily accepts it as reality.  He's describing atheism much the way a theist would.  He also calls it 'intellectual arrogance' which is again something a Theist would say.  Atheists aren't arrogant.  We don't know there's no god, though we can reasonably conclude that there likely is not. 

Here, I was seeing a visible light spectrum with at least 80 new primary colors.

For an art professor... I wonder if he knew anything about art.  Maybe that's why he quit his job.  He wasn't good at it.

Our initial conversation involved them simply trying to comfort me. Something that disturbed me was that I was naked. Somewhere in the darkness I'd lost my hospital gown. I was a human being. I had a body. They told me this was okay. They were quite familiar with my anatomy. Gradually I relaxed and stopped trying to cover my privates with my hands.

What's the purpose of sexual anatomy in heaven anyway?

I asked if it was true, and they said it was. Asking them why it was that when I tried to read it, all I saw were contradictions, they took me back to my life's review again - something that I had overlooked. They showed me, for the few times I had opened the Bible, that I had read it with the idea of finding contradictions and problems. I was trying to prove to myself that it wasn't worth reading. I observed to them that the Bible wasn't clear to me. It didn't make sense. They told me that it contained spiritual truth, and that I had to read it spiritually in order to understand it. It should be read prayerfully. My friends informed me that it was not like other books. They also told me, and I later found out this was true, that when you read it prayerfully, it talks to you. It reveals itself to you. And you don't have to work at it anymore.

I have a feeling atheist would be questioning many more things than "WAS THE BIBLE TRUE!?"  They'd be asking "What about Noah's Ark?  Did God really flood the world, and how did Noah get all those animals on there.  Was it just allegory?  Why wasn't THAT put in the bible that all of it was nothing more than allegory.  Do you realize how many people used this book to commit deeds of hate?  Why did God kill people over a census?  Why did God choose the Hebrews, and not try to spread his word to the entire world?"  nope.  Just "IS THE BIBLE TRUE?!"  "YES, BUT YOU MUST READ IT PRAYERFULLY  It's not like other books.  It's special." 

Their response was: "God loves the world." They told me that at the most, one or two nuclear weapons might go off accidentally, if they weren't destroyed, but there wouldn't be a nuclear war.

This would be quite the 'oops'. 

The future that they showed me was almost no technology at all.

Back in 2000 this might have been plausible.  Today, no way.  Technology is becoming a more and more important part of our lives.  And it'll continue to become more and more part of our lives. 

What everybody, absolutely everybody, in this euphoric future spent most of their time doing was raising children

I love my kids dearly, but this sounds boring.

There was this enormous sense of trust and mutual respect. If a person, in this view of the future, became disturbed, then the community of people all cared about the disturbed person falling away from the harmony of the group. Spiritually, through prayer and love, the others would elevate the afflicted person.

Well we know prayer is absolutely useless.  So either the 'spirits' 'angels' or whatever were lying, or Howard Storm is.

What people did with the rest of their time was that they gardened, with almost no physical effort. They showed me that plants, with prayer, would produce huge fruits and vegetables.

Let's try an experiment.  I will grow a tomato with sun and water, while Howard grows a tomato using prayer.  Let's see who's tomato gets bigger.

People, in unison, could control the climate of the planet through prayer. Everybody would work with mutual trust and the people would call the rain, when needed, and the sun to shine.

Yeah, that wouldn't start wars or anything... nope.  "I want rain."  "I want sun!"  "Can we get some snow?" 

People, in this best of all worlds, weren't interested in knowledge; they were interested in wisdom.

And here we go.  The theists "KNOWLEDGE IS BAD" idiocy.  Yeah this sounds more like a dystopia than a utopia.

In this future, people had no wanderlust, because they could, spiritually, communicate with everyone else in the world. There was no need to go elsewhere. They were so engrossed with where they were and the people around them that they didn't have to go on vacation. Vacation from what? They were completely fulfilled and happy.

Yeah, definitely a dystopia.

My conclusion:

Howard Storm is likely just another liar.  Why he lied?  It's hard to say.  Perhaps to try to convert atheists, to make money, or any number of reasons (after all what's a white lie to get people to believe in God?  And if he makes money off it, all the better).  Did he have an experience?  Maybe.  It's possible he dreamed all of this, and then badly wrote about all of it or hallucinated.  If he did have the experience, it calls even more into question if he was ever an atheist.  I don't consider him by any means remotely credible.  Some are hesitant to call him a liar, but I'd say he's probably just that.

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[scoobysnack]

Hmm. That didn't address any of the objections. I'm trying to prevent you falling flat on your face here.

Just because we don't know everything, it doesn't mean any particular made-up stuff is true.

I haven't posted any conclusions yet, and not worried about what people think. I will soon post them though.

[Excited Penguin]

Eh, I'm sure each atheist is different, since there is no "atheist dogma." If he felt really smart for being an atheist, I don't see how that means he wasn't really an atheist.

Ya, that's not what he said, he said he thought there was no afterlife because that's how really smart people thought. This raises a big flag and its not true there have been plenty of really smart people who believed in an afterlife. His story is full of stereotypes that you see quite often from a theist who tries and speak from an atheists point of view. I don't know whether he was truly an atheist or not and honestly it doesn't matter, the "I used to be an atheist" card does not lend any more credibility, than "I used to be a bus driver", it is merely used to re-enforce the beliefs of the believers.

Yeah, you're wasting your time. When you're sure you already know the truth beforehand, everything the other person says will fall on deaf ears, pretty much.

Admit it CL, you have no ground to stand on and this whole charade of trying to be reasonable about it is just that. Why don't you detach yourself from your faith and think about this stuff from a neutral perspective for a change? Just give it a few minutes of contemplation. I'm sure it's not a sin.

[Alex K]

What the hell does "read the bible prayerfully" mean?

It means keep your brain occupied with something while reading the bible so it doesn't accidentally think about it.

[drfuzzy]

We're supposed to read the Bible from the mindset that we are reading words written by god.  And that god will speak to us directly through what we read if we only approach the text in a prayerful manner.

Which is another way of saying "don't you dare question or criticize anything you read here".  

I loved Cecelia's deconstruction of the Storm account.  It ticked off all of my "you gotta be kidding me" moments and added a few.  The sad thing is that there was a need to do that at all.  It's astonishing that people can read that account the same way that my Mother reads the bible - - as if it was holy.  It's holy, alright.  Just add an "e" = holey.

[Catholic_Lady]

Ya, that's not what he said, he said he thought there was no afterlife because that's how really smart people thought. This raises a big flag and its not true there have been plenty of really smart people who believed in an afterlife. His story is full of stereotypes that you see quite often from a theist who tries and speak from an atheists point of view. I don't know whether he was truly an atheist or not and honestly it doesn't matter, the "I used to be an atheist" card does not lend any more credibility, than "I used to be a bus driver", it is merely used to re-enforce the beliefs of the believers.

Yeah, you're wasting your time. When you're sure you already know the truth beforehand, everything the other person says will fall on deaf ears, pretty much.

Admit it CL, you have no ground to stand on and this whole charade of trying to be reasonable about it is just that. Why don't you detach yourself from your faith and think about this stuff from a neutral perspective for a change? Just give it a few minutes of contemplation. I'm sure it's not a sin.

No, it's not a charade at all. Some of the stuff he said contradicts my own beliefs, and I have no dog in this fight.

I just think it's silly to conclude he wasn't an atheist based on that little phrase.

[Catholic_Lady]

What the hell does "read the bible prayerfully" mean?

Yes, this part doesn't sit very well with me either. Seems the question about the bible should have been better explained than just to say it should be read "prayerfully", whatever that means. It's a valid question that many Christians struggle with making sense of. 

Then again, this is the shortened version so maybe the book goes more in depth about it.

[Excited Penguin]

Yeah, you're wasting your time. When you're sure you already know the truth beforehand, everything the other person says will fall on deaf ears, pretty much.

Admit it CL, you have no ground to stand on and this whole charade of trying to be reasonable about it is just that. Why don't you detach yourself from your faith and think about this stuff from a neutral perspective for a change? Just give it a few minutes of contemplation. I'm sure it's not a sin.

No, it's not a charade at all. Some of the stuff he said contradicts my own beliefs, and I have no dog in this fight.

I just think it's silly to conclude he wasn't an atheist based on that little phrase.

I was just ranting, but I did mean some of it.

[The Valkyrie]

Anyone who claims to have once been an atheist and then faiks to understand the basics of atheim loses all credibility immediately.

[Catholic_Lady]

I thought atheism just meant you don't believe in God/gods... no "basics" necessary.