{"id":35172,"date":"2012-12-07T12:53:46","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T18:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=35172"},"modified":"2012-12-07T13:17:26","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T19:17:26","slug":"ndes-and-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/07\/ndes-and-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"NDEs and Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Are near death experiences an indicator of heaven?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kyle Hill<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

And these takedowns have company.\u00a0Paul Raeburn in the Huffington Post<\/a>, speaking of Alexander\u2019s deathbed vision being promoted as a scientific account, wrote, \u201cWe are all demeaned, and our national conversation is demeaned, by people who promote this kind of thing as science. This is religious belief; nothing else.\u201d We might expect this tone from skeptics, but even the faithful chime in. Greg Stierwrites in the Christian post<\/a>\u00a0that while he fully believes in the existence of Heaven, we should not take NDE accounts like Alexander\u2019s as proof of it.<\/p>\n

These criticisms of Alexander point out that what he saw was a classic NDE\u2014the white light, the tunnel, the feelings of connectedness, etc. This is effective in dismantling his account of an \u201cimmaterial intellect\u201d because, so far, most symptoms of a NDE are in fact scientifically explainable. [I won\u2019t go into depth here, as\u00a0another article on this site<\/a>\u00a0provides a thorough description of the evidence, as does\u00a0this study<\/a>.]\u2026<\/p>\n

Explaining the near death experience in a purely physical way is not to say that people cannot have a transformative vision or intense mental journey. The experience is real and tells us quite a bit about the brain (while raising even more fascinating questions about consciousness). But emotional and experiential gravitas says nothing of Heaven, or the afterlife in general. A\u00a0healthy imbibing of ketamine<\/a>can induce the same feelings, but rarely do we consider this euphoric haze a glance of God\u2019s paradise\u2026.<\/p>\n

The experiment is exploring an NDE under different conditions. Can the same sensations be produced when you are in fact not dying? If so, your rapping on the Pearly Gates is an illusion, even if Heaven were real. St. Peter surely can tell the difference between a dying man and a hallucinating one.<\/p>\n

The near death experience as a foreshadowing of Heaven is a beautiful theory perhaps, but wrong.<\/p>\n

Barring a capricious conception of \u201cGod\u2019s plan,\u201d one can experience a beautiful white light at the end of a tunnel while still having a firm grasp of their mortal coil. This is the death of near death. Combine explainable symptoms with a plausible, physical theory as to why we have them and you get a description of what it is like to die, not what it is like to glimpse God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are near death experiences an indicator of heaven?\u00a0 Kyle Hill: And these takedowns have company.\u00a0Paul Raeburn in the Huffington Post, speaking of Alexander\u2019s deathbed vision being promoted as a scientific account, wrote, \u201cWe are all demeaned, and our national conversation is demeaned, by people who promote this kind of thing as science. This is religious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNDEs and Heaven<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are near death experiences an indicator of heaven?\u00a0 Kyle Hill: And these takedowns have company.\u00a0Paul Raeburn in the Huffington Post, speaking of\" \/>\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\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/07\/ndes-and-heaven\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NDEs and Heaven\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Are near death experiences an indicator of heaven?\u00a0 Kyle Hill: And these takedowns have company.\u00a0Paul Raeburn in the Huffington Post, speaking of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/07\/ndes-and-heaven\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-12-07T18:53:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-12-07T19:17:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/07\/ndes-and-heaven\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/07\/ndes-and-heaven\/\",\"name\":\"NDEs and Heaven\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-12-07T18:53:46+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-12-07T19:17:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Are near death experiences an indicator of heaven?\u00a0 Kyle Hill: And these takedowns have company.\u00a0Paul Raeburn in the Huffington Post, speaking of\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/07\/ndes-and-heaven\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/07\/ndes-and-heaven\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/12\/07\/ndes-and-heaven\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"NDEs and Heaven\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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