Question about Near Death Experiences and Islam?

[arda101]

Hello everyone!
I have a Christian friend who sent me a boat load of Near Death Experiences, such as Howard Storm, Kenneth Hagin, Ian McCromick, Don Brubaker, and the list goes on. These can be found of this site:
http://www.near-death.com/religion/christianity.html

I did some research on these NDEs, and it seems as though the internet is filled with Christian NDEs, NDEs associated with no religion, or rarely Hindu NDEs. My question is, so many skeptics say that Near Death Experiences are the product of the brain essentially being deprived of oxygen. Then, Hallucinations may occur. Skeptics always also tend to argue that an NDE has to do with one's religious/cultural upbringing. I am wondering then, why is it that you will never find any 21st century records of any Islamic NDEs? You will find Islamic people who have them and report the typical white light, happiness, or even sometimes hell. However, you will never hear of an Islamic person seeing Muhammad, but many NDEs around the world will have Jesus. Why do you think that is? Finally, do you at all believe in NDEs?
Thanks,
Arda.

[vorlon13]

If you're only having a near death experience at the hands of an Islamite, then they aren't doing it right.

[Jesster]

I have heard Muslims report their own religious version of NDEs. I just don't hear it as often because I am in a Christian-dominated country.

I believe in NDEs. No, I don't believe NDEs are what religious people say they are.

[Astreja]

Regarding a Muslim not seeing Muhammad, I think that may actually be related to the lack of pictures of Muhammad. It's hard to have a recognizable hallucination of someone if you don't know what they're supposed to look like.

In the Western world, however, pictures of Jesus are everywhere and even people who aren't Christian have seen them.

[arda101]

Regarding a Muslim not seeing Muhammad, I think that may actually be related to the lack of pictures of Muhammad.  It's hard to have a recognizable hallucination of someone if you don't know what they're supposed to look like.

In the Western world, however, pictures of Jesus are everywhere and even people who aren't Christian have seen them.

So, do you think it is unreasonable to take NDEs as any proof of an afterlife?

[vorlon13]

Indeed.

Yes indubitably.

[Astreja]

So, do you think it is unreasonable to take NDEs as any proof of an afterlife?

Yes, I think that it's profoundly unreasonable.  I do not think that our awareness, whether one calls it the self, the soul or something else, is capable of existing independent of a functioning, conscious brain.  In fact, our awareness seems to completely disappear when we're under anesthesia or in the non-dreaming phases of sleep.  I don't think it has any chance at all of surviving actual death.

[Angrboda]

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

Do I "believe" in NDEs? What you presumably mean to ask is do I believe the metaphysical explanations of NDEs which attribute them to a life after death are accurate? A tantric practitioner on this forum is fond of saying that NDEs "are real." This completely overlooks the fact that assigning meaning to the experiences had during an NDE is a process of interpreting what the substance of the experiences actually is. Some attribute the experience to parting with their bodies in an experience that is like death. Since nobody comes back from true death, these assertions are uninformative. Nobody knows what it is like to be truly dead. There's a kind of circularity here: NDEs are like death; we know what death is like because of NDEs. It is nothing more than an assumption about what life after death would be like. Alternative, medical interpretations abound. Most attribute the experiences to a common brain reaction to specific circumstances. There is little to differentiate that interpretation from the one which says naively, "NDEs are real." The few accounts which challenge the medical interpretation, NDEs where patients had experience of their surroundings while they were "out" are equally challenging to the afterlife view, as they have radically different themes (see for example veridical NDEs such as the case of Pam Reynolds). And such veridical NDEs admit of a whole other class of explanations (separation of consciousness and the body; clairvoyance [aka remote viewing]; telepathy). As it turns out, there is MRI support for the position that OOBEs invoke the hallucinatory apparatus of the brain. So for any of these explanations, the "reality" of what is occurring in NDEs and OOBEs is simply unknown.

But you will find a lot of proponents of the afterlife interpretation. Part of this no doubt is a result of the fact that these experiences tend to be filled with emotion. It's hard to disregard highly emotional experiences, so people tend to become deeply invested in the explanation of their experience. (It's worth noting that studies have shown that a third of all NDEs occur in people who aren't in any kind of life threatening situation. These people report the same themes, heavy emotionality, and so on as people who have gone through life threatening situations.) Here in the West, we are conditioned by culture to associate certain themes with the afterlife. If these themes occur in NDEs, it may be natural to presume that NDEs reflect these same themes because the experience is in some sense a real experience of the afterlife. (Though having read several NDE accounts, there's as much divergent material as there is that which converges on traditional afterlife accounts.) Ignoring for the moment that it's possible these afterlife themes had their origin in NDEs in the ancient past, this is concluding that the cultural themes associated with the afterlife are in fact accurate, with no justification for assuming the cultural ideas are in fact accurate.

[ignoramus]

OP, all the evidence points to there not being a consciousness independent of the brain which harbors it.
I know and understand why Christians would dearly love for that to be the case though.

Even so, I still don't understand why this would mean anything unnatural unless one is of the binary disposition where anything/everything woo related is divine in nature?

People clinging to hope ...that's about the only naturally occurring thing here.

[brewer]

If there were more pictures in circulation of Muhammad then there would be more hallucinations/testimony that include a Muhammad image. 

I believe that people report NDE's. Are NDE's proof of afterlife (a consciousness after death), NO!