Heaven Is Real: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife

[Locutus]

When a neurosurgeon found himself in a coma, he experienced things he never thought possible—a journey to the afterlife.



As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.


read on:


Proof of Heaven: A Doctor?s Experience With the Afterlife - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

 

[JLM]

When a neurosurgeon found himself in a coma, he experienced things he never thought possible—a journey to the afterlife.



As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.


read on:


Proof of Heaven: A Doctor?s Experience With the Afterlife - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

I guess we'll find out one of these days! :smile:

 

[Dexter Sinister]

That's a remarkably unscientific essay from someone claiming to be steeped in the scientific world. A report of one more NDE hardly proves the claim.

 

[damngrumpy]

I don't think the world will change its opinion based on one scientists claims.
Some will grasp anything to reassure themselves of an afterlife. I think I
have enough trouble with this one.

 

[JLM]

That's a remarkably unscientific essay from someone claiming to be steeped in the scientific world. A report of one more NDE hardly proves the claim.

Still, nobody knows for sure! :smile:

 

[gerryh]

Still, nobody knows for sure! :smile:

Sure, Dexter does. Ask him, he'll tell ya.

 

[karrie]

I don't have a 'need' for an afterlife. This life has been lots, and I've lived it well. But, I've met enough people who've had NDE's.... and had my own bizarre occurences.... that I think dismissing it would be as foolish as wholeheartedly accepting any and all accounts.

What this surgeon fails to realize it would seem to me though, is that at no point did his cortex simply turn back on to fully functioning. To say 'it was shut down', would be erroneous. It had to start back up at some point. Comas don't turn on and off like a light switch. And time during an NDE is a slippery concept. I have one friend who describes weeks of waiting in purgatory, talking through his life's mistakes, during the minutes he was legally dead. For this surgeon to come out of a coma, I'd be quite certain there would be more than a few minutes of his brain firing back up to full function.

 

[DaSleeper]

For those who think that science can explain everything....just think that in your lifetime there has been more discoveries made by man than than in all time previously...
That would mean that what is yet unknown is immeasurable!

 

[gore0bsessed]

read on:

Nah...

 

[Cliffy]

As with life, what we will experience after death will be exactly what we expect will happen... until we wake up.

 

[JLM]

As with life, what we will experience after death will be exactly what we expect will happen... until we wake up.

Back in town for a winter tune up? :smile:

 

[Corduroy]

Near death experiences seem to assume an afterlife bureaucracy. When you die, you go to the afterlife, so if you die before your time and are revived by doctors, the process begins anyway. You show up in heaven or in that tunnel with that light at the end of it, but you aren't supposed to be dead yet and end up back on Earth when the still living revive you. Is anyone actually in charge up there or is it just a cause and effect thing? You die, you go to heaven. You're revived after death, you go back to Earth. Kinda makes you wonder about the whole omnipotent all-knowing God with a plan doesn't it?

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Sure, Dexter does. Ask him, he'll tell ya.

Just as you would, I express what I believe to be true with no more or less certainty than you do. How does this work, exactly, is it because your convictions have the religious label on them so you get to express them directly and forcefully but mine are diametrically opposed to yours so I don't?

 

[talloola]

clinging to a belief just to make the actual event of death more positive and interesting is
interesting in itself, just shows again how deep and adventurous one's imagination is, a
real and ongoing part of man's struggle to make death something other than what it is.

Do we really think that all of 'past lives, including all life, not just humans' are actually
out there somewhere floating around, wow, we think earth is getting crowded, how can anything
move out there, talk about grid lock, thats the motherload.

Common sense, not science tells us what happens when we die.

 

[TenPenny]

I think all that story proves is that this particular neurosurgeon believes in the afterlife, which is why he had those experiences in the coma.

 

[darkbeaver]

Near death experiences seem to assume an afterlife bureaucracy. When you die, you go to the afterlife, so if you die before your time and are revived by doctors, the process begins anyway. You show up in heaven or in that tunnel with that light at the end of it, but you aren't supposed to be dead yet and end up back on Earth when the still living revive you. Is anyone actually in charge up there or is it just a cause and effect thing? You die, you go to heaven. You're revived after death, you go back to Earth. Kinda makes you wonder about the whole omnipotent all-knowing God with a plan doesn't it?

The wonder of it all escapes some of our posters who would rather cling to stainless steel slabs of human certainty, something like the, hell yes, just like the religious. In my latest NDE I saw the blinding white light complete with what sounded like screeching banshies and a whistling tea kettle followed by a pronounced but abruptly trunciated smack in the face. It changed my life, I became uglier. Whiskey and cannabis had arranged to fool me with GE headlights. It wasn't god it was the mail truck.

 

[gerryh]

Just as you would, I express what I believe to be true with no more or less certainty than you do. How does this work, exactly, is it because your convictions have the religious label on them so you get to express them directly and forcefully but mine are diametrically opposed to yours so I don't?

The difference between you and I voicing our convictions is, I have never called anyone down for not believing in God, whereas you have all kinds of unsavoury epitaphs for those that do believe.

 

[gore0bsessed]

I think all that story proves is that this particular neurosurgeon believes in the afterlife, which is why he had those experiences in the coma.

He must not believe DMT being released in your brain during traumatic events, creating hallucinogenic affects.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

The difference between you and I voicing our convictions is, I have never called anyone down for not believing in God, whereas you have all kinds of unsavoury epitaphs for those that do believe.

Really? I seem to recall some pretty vitriolic fits of foul-mouthed bad temper from you over what you incorrectly perceived as Christian bashing, I don't think you have any claim to the moral high ground. I've never been timed out or banned here, or anywhere, or even warned, which ought to tell you something about our respective levels of civility in discourse.

The word you want there is epithets, not epitaphs, the latter means commemorative writings about dead people.

 

[gerryh]

Really? I seem to recall some pretty vitriolic fits of foul-mouthed bad temper from you over what you incorrectly perceived as Christian bashing, I don't think you have any claim to the moral high ground. I've never been timed out or banned here, or anywhere, or even warned, which ought to tell you something about our respective levels of civility in discourse.

The word you want there is epithets, not epitaphs, the latter means commemorative writings about dead people.

Show me where I have called you down, aside from replies to your snide remarks on the faithfulls mental capacity, when it comes to your beliefs/disbeliefs. I have no problem finding quotes from you concerning the mental abilities of those that do have faith in God.