{"id":44969,"date":"2017-11-20T15:12:44","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T22:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=44969"},"modified":"2017-11-21T13:51:02","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T20:51:02","slug":"near-death-experiences-belief-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/11\/near-death-experiences-belief-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Near-death experiences and belief in God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Chicago Illinois Temple\u00a0of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Near-death experiences, while they do not directly demonstrate the existence of God, strongly seem to suggest that the universe is the kind of place in which it makes abundant sense to believe that God exists. The actress Jane Seymour would surely agree.\u00a0 She says that her experience \u201cconfirmed her belief in God.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 As one man, who survived a major automobile accident, told the Gallup researchers, \u201cI now know, without a shadow of doubt, that God . . . does exist.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Sigmund Freud\u2019s former disciple, the illustrious Carl Gustav Jung, certainly thought so, as well.\u00a0 In a BBC interview, Jung, who, as we have seen, had himself undergone a near-death experience, was asked if he believed in God.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t believe,\u201d he responded.\u00a0 \u201cI know.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cI no longer have merely a belief in God,\u201d says another NDEr, \u201crather, I know that He lives and I know His voice.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Statistical data indicate that near-death experiencers, as opposed to those who have been near to death but recall no NDE, tend very clearly to become more religious after their return.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 University of Connecticut psychology professor Kenneth Ring, says of himself himself that he \u201cgrew up a deracinated Jew\u201d and \u201cirreligious.\u201d\u00a0 Yet, reflecting on what had by then been twenty-two years devoted to intensive academic study of NDEs, he remarked in 1999 that<\/span><\/p>\n

I found that the atheism of my younger years was insupportable and, mirabile dictu<\/em>, I no longer had any doubt about God\u2019s existence and in fact came to believe that God was intimately involved in the orchestration of NDEs. . . .\u00a0 God\u2019s fingerprints are all over this phenomenon.<\/strong>[6]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Ritchie, Death\u2019s Door<\/em>, 47.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> George Gallup, Jr., with William Proctor, Adventures in Immortality<\/em> (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), 128.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Cox-Chapman says that this interview occurred in the 1970s.\u00a0 But Jung died in 1961.\u00a0 Perhaps it was published somewhere in the 1970s . . .\u00a0 For a critique of the adequacy of Jung\u2019s approach to religion (well-founded, in my opinion), see Jones, Degenerate Moderns<\/em>, 198-207.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> See Lee Nelson and Richard Nelson, Near Death Experiences<\/em>, vol. 4 (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 1994), 169.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ring, Life at Death<\/em>, 159, 163, 171, 173, 185.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Kenneth Ring, \u201cForeword\u201d to Arvin S. Gibson, Fingerprints of God: Evidences from Near-Death Studies, Scientific Research on Creation, and Mormon Theology<\/em> (Bountiful, UT: Horizon, 1999), 18, 20.\u00a0 Ring\u2019s self-description is to be found on pages 17 and 19.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

From an American Catholic cardinal:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSilencing the Voices of Faith\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s why non-evangelicals should pay attention to evangelical politics\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hmmm . . .<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt BYU, speaker says religious right\u2019s ties to Republican party spurred secularization\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Chicago, Illinois<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Near-death experiences, while they do not directly demonstrate the existence of God, strongly seem to suggest that the universe is the kind of place in which it makes abundant sense to believe that God exists. The actress Jane Seymour would surely agree.\u00a0 She says that her experience \u201cconfirmed her belief in God.\u201d[1]\u00a0 As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNear-death experiences and belief in God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Near-death experiences, while they do not directly demonstrate the existence of God, strongly seem to suggest that the universe is the kind\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/11\/near-death-experiences-belief-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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