Is There Life After Death (YES!)

Dr. Jeffrey Long argues that if you look at the scientific evidence, the answer is unequivocally yes. Drawing on a decade's worth of research on near-death experiences — work that includes cataloguing the stories of some 1,600 people who have gone through them — he makes the case for that controversial conclusion in a new book, Evidence of the Afterlife. Medicine.

I believe the energy within us, some may call a soul, never dies! Interesting piece from Time magazine I thought some of you might enjoy.

Questions and Answrs.

Medically speaking, what is a near-death experience?
A near-death experience has two components. The person has to be near death, which means physically compromised so severely that permanent death would occur if they did not improve: they're unconscious, or often clinically dead, with an absence of heartbeat and breathing. The second component [is that] at the time they're having a close brush with death, they have an experience. [It is] generally lucid [and] highly organized.
(See the year in health 2009.)

How do you respond to skeptics who say there must be some biological or physiological basis for that kind of experience, which you say in the book is medically inexplicable?
There have been over 20 alternative, skeptical "explanations" for near-death experience. The reason is very clear: no one or several skeptical explanations make sense, even to the skeptics themselves. Or [else ]there wouldn't be so many.

You say there's less skepticism about near-death experiences than there used to be, as well as more awareness. Why is that?
Literally hundreds of scholarly articles have been written over the last 35 years about near-death experience. In addition to that, the media continues to present [evidence of] near-death experience. Hundreds of thousands of pages a month are read on our website, NDERF.org.

Read more: www.time.com...






[mod edit: clipped quoted content, added Required external source tags]
Mod Edit: External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 24-1-2010 by 12m8keall2c]

Originally posted by Mr_skepticc
Dr. Jeffrey Long argues that if you look at the scientific evidence, the answer is unequivocally yes. Drawing on a decade's worth of research on near-death experiences — work that includes cataloguing the stories of some 1,600 people who have gone through them — he makes the case for that controversial conclusion in a new book, Evidence of the Afterlife. Medicine.
I believe the energy within us, some may call a soul, never dies! Interesting piece from Time magazine I thought some of you might enjoy.

I agree with that view Mr_skepticc, for years and years I believed it was not the case, so that when one died it ended there forever and for certain reasons I hoped it was true.

Since some years now my view on that has changed dramatically and the reasons for that I will keep for myself.

But one of them is sorely those near death experiences which are altogether connecting with my other reasons for that believe.

Good doc about kids that remeber past lives

www.youtube.com...

Enjoy

Life after death is a fascinating subject to think about. I would love to think that we carry on into a better place.

Dr Long's beliefs seem IMO to be clouded by Western values. I checked out his site...Life Review, Changed Beliefs, Universal Order and Purpose, and the Near-Death Experience. I browsed a while hoping to see something that chimed or rang true. I was disappointed to see his critical thinking is less than rigorous.

There's a strong focus on religion and Jesus....which reflects the biased sample from which he's drawing his conclusions. Western patients=Western life after death experiences. Does the afterlife have a cultural bias? Or do the people making the claims?

If I had a clear cut life after death experience..of course it would change my view of life! A life after death experience comes after dying! This event alone would cause anyone to re-evaluate and regroup in life

reply to post by Mr_skepticc


Good thread.
Everything that you've stated is, still, based on beliefs.
Even the scientist is staking a claim that there is absolute positive evidence to persuade his opinion. As if he needed it...
You have to believe there is life after death.
Because, without beliefs, we have nothing.

I, for one, believe there is "life" after death, but not in our physical realm.
This helps explain all the recent ghost hunter series' on TLC!


*S&F*



[edit on 24-1-2010 by havok]

Good thread Mr Skeptic!

I've always been fascinated by NDE's, simply because they give us the only real glimpse we can get into something that is going to happen to all of us.

The skeptics of NDE's have never been able to even come close to convincing me that they are just dreams or some physiological process- There have been many cases were the brain is literally dead- No brain activity, at all, yet they still report the same type of experience when they are revived.

I would love to believe in a continuation of sorts, but don't some scientists say that the white light that some people see is the brain shutting down and that NDEs are hallucinatory caused by the same? It is also said that the experience varies according to the belief system of the person.

Originally posted by unicorn1
I would love to believe in a continuation of sorts, but don't some scientists say that the white light that some people see is the brain shutting down and that NDEs are hallucinatory caused by the same? It is also said that the experience varies according to the belief system of the person.

Like I said, some cases have shown the brain to be completely and utterly dead. There is no way it could produce any kind of experience- let alone store that experience in physical memory when it is completely dead.

As for the NDE's being influenced by the belief system of the person...

The experiences are viewed as having very similar qualities across the spectrum- most of the time it is the personal interpretation of the experience that results in it seeming to be based on religious beliefs.

Even if they are influenced, wouldn't that be the most comforting way to begin the transition into the next world?

the white light at the end of the tunnel is because of the optic nerve starts shutting down...sort of like how people whom have a stroke see in tunnelvision and then it gets wavey...also if you push your fingers against your eyes (do it while they are closed) you see all sorts of pretty lights.)

the brain is slowing down and so these flashes of lights and tunnelvision is processed slowly...also, the body often is flooded with endorphins to create a euphoria...ooh, the tranquility of the tunnel.

This is hardly proof considering everything can be (and has been) explained away as a rather mundane function of the body.

Now, the things that are actually interesting is when people "float" away from their body and can then start talking about whats going on in different parts of the hospital/world/whatever accurately when they wake up...and have no former access to know these things...

tunnels and white lights...not impressed...but things you can confirm afterwards do spark the mind with curiousity...think there was one story of some boy whom did the float away thing and went above the hospital...seeing on the rooftop a red shoe...later confirmed true. the boy had no clue about this beforehand and so either it was a 1 in a...lord knows what the number would be chance...or there is something to his claim.

Anyhow, good thread...dismiss the things that can be explained away and concentrate on the remarkable things that yet cant.

Originally posted by Kandinsky
Life after death is a fascinating subject to think about. I would love to think that we carry on into a better place.

Dr Long's beliefs seem IMO to be clouded by Western values. I checked out his site...Life Review, Changed Beliefs, Universal Order and Purpose, and the Near-Death Experience. I browsed a while hoping to see something that chimed or rang true. I was disappointed to see his critical thinking is less than rigorous.

There's a strong focus on religion and Jesus....which reflects the biased sample from which he's drawing his conclusions. Western patients=Western life after death experiences. Does the afterlife have a cultural bias? Or do the people making the claims?

If I had a clear cut life after death experience..of course it would change my view of life! A life after death experience comes after dying! This event alone would cause anyone to re-evaluate and regroup in life

The Youtube link above leads you to an interesting documentary that I coincidentally first watched just last night, before stumbling upon this thread.
It's not quite about NDEs, but makes a strong argument for a continuation of the spirit, or reincarnation.

It would seems that NDE's and these instances where people remember past lives (children in particular) transcend cultures and belief systems.

Originally posted by Monts

As for the NDE's being influenced by the belief system of the person...

Reminds me of this semi-crap joke someone told me once...

Agnostic man dies and goes to heaven...meets St. Peter at the pearly gates:
Wow...so heaven is true. Sure says Pete. Then the man looks to his left and there is this big pit. he peers down into it and see's all these demons and fire, people screaming in pain, all that.
Wow..hell is true also?
Pete looks down and shakes his head...naa, we didnt make that...those are christians down there. the christians demanded it, so they made it and jumped in...

I think the point was...you create your own reality, even afterwards...people tend to be the biggest critics of themselves

reply to post by Elepheagle
Oh yeah, I agree there. I'm not disputing the reality of NDEs at all. I've read a lot about them since beginning a psychology degree years ago.

I'm disputing the good Doc in the OP. I think his conclusions are unscientific and pointed out that his sample is also biased. If you click through his site...it's fairly 'new age unspecific.' It has a pseudo-scientific air about it with the references cited...but a lot of them are by his wife. Conflict of interest? @)

supposedly your brain pumps out massive amounts of '___' (dimethyltryptamine) when you die or have a NDE thats why many people report having very crazy experiences. although their has been some debate on whether our brain even produces '___' or not.

The issue of whether a person is actually dead during the experiences of the OBE vision has been examined in great detail -- here's the latest results:

www.skeptiko.com...

reply to post by SaturnFX

I have heard a number of interviews with Dr. Long, he came kicking and screaming to this topic but after time could not deny that there is life after death, in these interviews he presented some very compelling cases. You can read many of them on his website and also can submit any personal experiences there.

www.nderf.org...

S&F for OP

reply to post by Kandinsky

If I had a clear cut life after death experience..of course it would change my view of life! A life after death experience comes after dying! This event alone would cause anyone to re-evaluate and regroup in life

That's exactly what happened to this man:

Google Video Link

And these people:

Google Video Link

There is more to life than meets the eye.

Originally posted by Monts
As for the NDE's being influenced by the belief system of the person...

The experiences are viewed as having very similar qualities across the spectrum- most of the time it is the personal interpretation of the experience that results in it seeming to be based on religious beliefs.

Well, I was not stating that it's influenced by a persons beliefs.
Especially religious.

I'm stating that until you die, you don't know.
So either you believe in life after death, or you don't.

Even if you don't believe in life after death, it could still be possible.
Same goes to say, if you DO believe, and it doesn't happen.

I would love for this to be true...but these OBE's and NDE's can be explained thru medical findings...


It gets a little technical, but you don't need to speak medical-nese to follow it.


I saw the documentary that covered this and it was quite a trip to watch them do this...I will look for a video of it.


content edit...





[edit on 1/24/2010 by happygolucky]

thats all good and swell but were do we go if there is no heaven or hell? are we just stuck on earth in spirit form?

the way i think about it is thought comes from the brain and so does your 5 senses so what would a life without them things include??