reply to post by BlackOps719
The truth is, I really dont know
My dad was clinically dead on an operating table back in 1978 after suffering from heart failure. He was gone from this world for almost four full
minutes. He drew pictures when he awoke of awful places that he had seen, as well as angelic faces and a choir of robed angels who sang as he was
flown over a lake of fire. He continued to live his life as he always had, but he never changed his story once about what he saw.
Perhaps people see what they expect to see when they pass due to a reaction of chemicals in the brain, perhaps they see the true face of what is to
come and truly bare witness to God or whatever is out there waiting for us.
The only thing that is certain, we all have our tickets punched and we will all take that ride soon enough. Best enjoy your time here while you have
it
Here's a paradox: if there is continued conscious existence after death nothing could have more far-reaching implications for how we live now. It is
quite extraordinary that this topic can sometimes be shelved as just 'another topic of interest' IMHO. Most other questions and even activities pale
into insignificance if death is certain, and may lay its hand on us at any moment.
I've walked into work, sat down at my desk and then heard the voice of a colleague (who'd entered the room undetected) say "K____'s dead". K____,
being an inexpressibly dear friend and colleague, had taken me to many foreign destinations and passed on to me something of the fruit of his decades
of labours. Like a brother, despite the generational difference.
Gone.
Flip forward several years.
Someone so dear to me no earthly words could express. I'll say no more for fear of breaking down. Dying in my arms. Dead in my arms.
Gone.
Me, breathing my last.
Gone.
(Postponed several times.)
What could be more noble than to seek the answer to the ultimate question?
Why, o why do so many get offended when someone says they are convinced they know the answer? I suppose they suspect an arrogance or perhaps that the
one speaking must be a bit simple, needing a lower standard of proof than someone with real intellectual integrity...
There never will be proof unless people flock to volunteer for research whereby they're deliberately killed and then, by the miracles of modern
resuscitation techniques, brought back to the living - hopefully
. And even should evidence of conscious existence emerge in trial after trial,
skeptics will ever cry: 'Memories, that's all it is!'
BlackOps, your Dad's testimony has been repeated times without number. NDEs are not even regarded as unusual any more. Ask any doctor who's worked
in an emergency room or been involved in resuscitation. Mountains of evidence in the form of testimonies.
Personally, my conviction that there is continuation of life after death is based entirely on the resurrection of Christ. There is also the cumulative
weight of the wisdom of the ancients, from every corner of the planet. Certainly not proof, but not to be ignored either. Then there are OBEs, which
provide sometimes compelling evidence that the true self can be separated from the physical body.
The stumbling block for many is often "No proof, no take seriously." I'd like to turn it on its head: in the face of ever-increasing evidence,
there are grounds for becoming ever more skeptical of the idea that conscious existence ceases at death.
This turned out to be a very informative exchange of views, ideas and approaches:
Near-death experiences are real, and we have the proof, say scientists
Ultimate proof? No. But what I found interesting is how people from a diffuse variety of backgrounds are now aware that the true self lives on on some
other plane of existence.
If we seek the answer to this question in a philosophical approach alone one thing is certain: we will never find the answer. It cannot be ascertained
by pure abstraction.
An evidence-based approach, however, provides real answers for some people. Answers that, far from simply encouraging general positivity, compel many
to reassess what on earth they are doing with their allotted days on this planet.
The advert says: "The future's bright. The future's Orange."
I say: The future's eternal. The future's out of this world.
