“Death Is Not Final”: LIVE DEBATE with Dr. Eben Alexander, Author of “Proof of Heaven”

TODAY (May 7, 2014) at 6:45pm Eastern

In partnership with FORA.tv, Patheos presents an Intelligence Squared debate: “Death is Not Final.”

If consciousness is just the workings of neurons and synapses, how do we explain the phenomenon of near-death experience? By some accounts, about 3 percent of the U.S. population has had one: an out-of-body experience often characterized by remarkable visions and feelings of peace and joy, all while the physical body is close to death. To skeptics, there are more plausible, natural explanations, like oxygen deprivation. Is the prospect of an existence after death “real” and provable by science, or a construct of wishful thinking about our own mortality?

Debate Participants:

For the Motion:

Dr. Eben Alexander, Neurosurgeon and author, Proof of Heaven

Dr. Raymond Moody, Psychologist, Medical doctor and author, Life After Life

Against the Motion:

Sean Carroll, Physicist and Writer

Dr. Steven Novella, Academic Neurologist, Yale School of Medicine