Why so many people–including scientists–suddenly believe in an afterlife

reply to post by wildtimes

Hello wildtimes,
Great thread! S&F

I'm at p.7 and I am still reading, I just wanted to add my two cents if I may.

If scientists are slowly starting to believe in an afterlife as well, then please let me say, it's about darn time!
Something we sensitives have been yapping on about for ages, and many times our words either landed on deaf ears , or people call us mentally challenged.

Here are some of my personal reasons/experiences why I know the afterlife exists:

1. I have seen spirits with my own eyes (not my third eye) and had witnesses see them too.

2. I have felt being touched on the back/ shoulders by spirits

3. I have heard spirits

4. I have had a couple of OBEs -some of them wanted, some of them not.

5. I have dreamed of seeing my dead grandfather once in heaven smiling at me and waving at me with a dalmation standing next to him. (It turned out he actually had a dalmation dog when he was a kid, and I or my mom didn't even know about this. My grandmother later confirmed it.)

6. My mother recently passed away, may God bless her, last Saturday, and I did a Tarot card reading to see how she was doing and the cards clearly showed her being sad about dying but then when she saw two men (her father and her uncle) standing near a light, she felt happy and went with them, and the last cards were the 'wishes fulfilled' card, and the 'lovers' card. I know she is being loved and her wishes fulfilled, which eases my aching heart a little.

I have had too many paranormal experiences throughout my whole life, sometimes on my own, sometimes with family members/ friends as witnesses, and I am sure that there is an afterlife.

I don't know if we will ever be able to prove it scientifically, who knows, science has grown and is constantly discovering new things/ or in some cases rediscovering things.

Time will tell.

Thanks for the great thread, now I will continue reading.

reply to post by Rainbowresidue


I hope you find the rest of the thread interesting and compelling, too. I'd love to hear about your OBEs, I haven't successfully had one...

Very Sorry for your loss. My dad died 3 years ago, and recently my mom told me that when he was 'unresponsive', and apparently had 'passed', she told him "I love you", and a tear slid out from his closed eyelid.

It makes me tear up just thinking about it. I know he loved her with all his heart, and was very grateful to have such a nice home, a beautiful wife, and a good life (not all of it was pleasant, but the life he and Mom built together was certainly very pleasant). I miss him - but, yes, he visits in my 'dream-state.'

Something we sensitives have been yapping on about for ages, and many times our words either landed on deaf ears , or people call us mentally challenged.

Yeah, or "New Age woo-woo nutters". Yeah, well, 50 years later, we're still going strong, and how many "fads" have come and gone? Geocentricity? REALLY? And they call us "nutters"? lol

I'll look forward to your further responses and thoughts!

reply to post by WarminIndy


But I don't think they are the same type of hallucination, they may have very different etiologies and functions, so naturally manifest in different ways.
Is your argument based on the fact that people who experience the hallucinations associated with what we currently call mental illness realize sooner or later that they are in fact hallucinating? That's not entirely true, it depends on where you are on the SZ spectrum. Hallucinations can become very credible/real, otherwise people wouldn't kill themselves because of their hallucinations. In your case, your awareness of SPD is a good reality-checker.

Unity_99
reply to post by wildtimes

 

Some of us understand this, and NDE's are wonderful for glimpsing into the truth, such as Anita Moorjani's, where she become her infinite Higher Self, and saw it was like a completed infinite tapestry, and we were a thread in this, our current life.

I can understand becoming that "Infinite higher self" after death, because in essence when we die we dissipate into everything. But why do you insist on believing that one's personality, identity etc survive one's physical death? And some of you even claim that one transcends their ego upon death, while retaining their "individuality" (quite convenient), and you call that "the higher self". When in fact any conception of a "self" is ego, your "higher self" very much included.

reply to post by sleepdealer

But why do you insist on believing that one's personality, identity etc survive one's physical death? And some of you even claim that one transcends their ego upon death, while retaining their "individuality" (quite convenient), and you call that "the higher self". When in fact any conception of a "self" is ego, your "higher self" very much included.

Why do you insist on believing that it DOESN'T? By the way, how much study have you done into THIS subject, over the last, say, five years. Do you keep up with current findings, research, NDEs, and science regarding death?

You haven't provided any sources (that I've caught, at this point), just your opinion, and you keep calling your opinion FACTS, when there are millions of people -- including SCIENTISTS (and not "just aging scientists" or whatever other 'adjective' it was you used - implying that it's only "backwards, outdated, or ignorant/gullible people" who believe in it.

HOW MUCH research do you have under your hatband, dude? Who are you to tell us what the FACTS are, when obviously we've done our research, or else are willing to do MORE research. You have closed your mind, that's all.

Sad.

reply to post by wildtimes


I find this claim interesting. I'd never before heard of reports coming from people that had been dead for hours, after rigor setting in, but then being revived and with tales to tell. Can you point me to some authoritative works on this? I would like to read something verifiable rather than just "new agey" stuff that makes claims without the data to back it up. Thanks.

reply to post by dovdov


Did you bother reading the OP? Or was that too "new agey" for you? It's interesting how people want to pick and choose the truths they hear or read. And then they feel they are entitled to interpretive liberties that change the definition or meaning of those truths.

AfterInfinity
It's interesting how people want to pick and choose the truths they hear or read. And then they feel they are entitled to interpretive liberties that change the definition or meaning of those truths.

Everyone does that. If it doesnt fit in with what you perceive to be the truth, then it is generally discarded. Some will take the opportunity to explore it, but at first glance, I would say its just a general human response and quite natural.

Even when we use language to communicate, we each have our interpretation of what the words mean. And the overall "picture" that is formed will differ from person to person. Books made into movies is an excellent example, though its deeper than that.

The biggest difference, in my opinion, is whether one actively explores the presented ideas (inevitably through their own biased context), or whether they direct their energy to tear down the message and messenger.

Humans, eh? We are a funny people.

reply to post by Serdgiam

Humans, eh? We are a funny people.

More sad than funny.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by Serdgiam

 

Humans, eh? We are a funny people.

More sad than funny.

My point exactly! Thanks for letting us see a bit more about what "picture" you see.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


The OP was "new agey"? I didn't think so at all.

Wildtimes is just making an observation about what is going on. Scientists are now embracing the afterlife, and maybe it's because it is such a common thing among people, it is becoming a cultural norm, they are starting to believe it too?

The question was "why are so many scientists...?" There are so many reasons why, but what wildtimes is pointing out, the scientific community is conceding that there are things they have no answer for, no matter how many experiments they do to disprove it, they haven't been able to and since the rest of the world believes scientists with their lives, then the many experiments are proving right there is an afterlife and NDEs, OBEs, RV and AP. So, since they can't disprove it, then they have to concede.

reply to post by Serdgiam


A fuzzy, staticy, thousand-shades-of-gray picture. Very little is even close to absolute.

dovdov
reply to post by wildtimes

 

I find this claim interesting. I'd never before heard of reports coming from people that had been dead for hours, after rigor setting in, but then being revived and with tales to tell. Can you point me to some authoritative works on this? I would like to read something verifiable rather than just "new agey" stuff that makes claims without the data to back it up. Thanks.

Oh the Tardis....

What is New Age about this?

The concept of the afterlife is not new. And here you go, another Soul about the soul. Oh, but this isn't mainstream, because mainstream means scientists have to admit it. And we all know, it's true if the scientific community says it is...right?

AfterInfinity
reply to post by Serdgiam

 

A fuzzy, staticy, thousand-shades-of-gray picture.

Indeed. But, a Picture nonetheless!

Very little is even close to absolute.

Encompassing the absolute? Yeah, pretty hard to do..

However, to be "absolute," it would have to include your "fuzzy, staticy, thousand-shades-of-gray picture" as a part of it. In that, your picture is not only close to the absolute, it would have to be direct part of the absolute itself.

If you werent a direct and valid part of it, it wouldnt be very absolute, I dont think.

reply to post by WarminIndy


I never said it was. I was asking a question, maybe you should read more closely next time.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

I never said it was. I was asking a question, maybe you should read more closely next time.

I went back up and read the other post, I realized it was not you who said it.

I was simply agreeing with your question

reply to post by dovdov


There are links in the OP. Particularly you want to read the thread regarding
Mellen-Thomas Benedict's NDE provided answers....
and also look at his account of it: Mellen-Thomas Benedict's Near-Death Experience
(An outside site.)

Also check out Anita Moorjani.

Yes, once you get going and digging, you discover how people have revived after DAYS in morgue lockers....even on the autopsy table, and also they are learning more about how cold temps delay the 'death process'. Medicine is just NOW figuring out that consciousness continues beyond the so-called "moment of death":

Electrical Signatures of Consciousness in the Dying Brain from August of THIS YEAR.

Whether and how the dying brain is capable of generating conscious activity has been vigorously debated.

But in this week's PNAS Early Edition, a U-M study shows shortly after clinical death, in which the heart stops beating and blood stops flowing to the brain, rats display brain activity patterns characteristic of conscious perception.

"This study, performed in animals, is the first dealing with what happens to the neurophysiological state of the dying brain," says lead study author Jimo Borjigin, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology and associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School.
"It will form the foundation for future human studies investigating mental experiences occurring in the dying brain, including seeing light during cardiac arrest," she says.

Approximately 20 percent of cardiac arrest survivors report having had a near-death experience during clinical death. These visions and perceptions have been called "realer than real," according to previous research, but it remains unclear whether the brain is capable of such activity after cardiac arrest.
"We reasoned that if near-death experience stems from brain activity, neural correlates of consciousness should be identifiable in humans or animals even after the cessation of cerebral blood flow," she says.

I posted a link earlier about Life After Death? New Techniques Halt Dying Process from last month.

This stuff is, as far as I am concerned, irresistible subject matter.

And ALSO: If they can study this stuff in ANIMALS (rats and monkeys) to determine what is going on in "our" brains....doesn't that mean that those ANIMALS also have souls. I think it does; just this week I came to embrace the theory that ANY animal that sleeps AND DREAMS has a SOUL.

reply to post by WarminIndy

Wildtimes is just making an observation about what is going on. Scientists are now embracing the afterlife, and maybe it's because it is such a common thing among people, it is becoming a cultural norm, they are starting to believe it too?

The question was "why are so many scientists...?" There are so many reasons why, but what wildtimes is pointing out, the scientific community is conceding that there are things they have no answer for, no matter how many experiments they do to disprove it, they haven't been able toand since the rest of the world believes scientists with their lives, then the many experiments are proving right there is an afterlife and NDEs, OBEs, RV and AP. So, since they can't disprove it, then they have to concede.

WOW. THANK YOU, Indy. *applauds*

reply to post by Serdgiam

Everyone does that. If it doesnt fit in with what you perceive to be the truth, then it is generally discarded. Some will take the opportunity to explore it, but at first glance, I would say its just a general human response and quite natural.

Even when we use language to communicate, we each have our interpretation of what the words mean. And the overall "picture" that is formed will differ from person to person. Books made into movies is an excellent example, though its deeper than that.

The biggest difference, in my opinion, is whether one actively explores the presented ideas (inevitably through their own biased context), or whether they direct their energy to tear down the message and messenger.

Humans, eh? We are a funny people.

OMG!!! YES!!!

Mods: can you PLEASE give applause to these two? Indy and Serdg? I can only give stars and type
*applauds*....

thanks, Serdg.

(Sorry, wasting bandwidth, I guess - but you two have PERFECTLY expressed (in your own words; paraphrasing) what I am talking about.

CHEERS! BEERS ON ME!!

reply to post by AfterInfinity

Something tells me NDE's are a result of higher awareness, of recognizing intangible concepts and exploring them, of opening ourselves up to new sensations, new trains of thought, new philosophical doors that grant us the psychological flexibility to experience such encounters. Call it "spiritual puberty". Something is changing inside of us, and as a result, our relationship with the world beyond/above/within/etc this world is also changing.

That is an interesting theory, and definitely has some credibility in terms of a non-supernatural context.

The only thing is, what would make our consciousness contemplate such possibilities, and experience such sensations? Why would our minds expand to consider higher thought and new sensations? I ask this because not everyone even has the presence of mind to even care about such subjects and possibilities. A drunken idiot frat boy who thought he was superman when he leaped off the balcony, a crack addict who od'd, a young gang member who loses in a shootout versus rivals/cops; i'm not saying that these people won't contemplate on higher subjects...heck, most people don't contemplate or even regard higher subjects or possibilities. So it has to mean something that their conscience shifts to higher awareness when seconds ago they were being drunk and silly/ getting high/ gunfighting over money.

Then plenty of people in NDE'S recount actually seeing angels/ human figures enshrouded in light, or hearing a voice directing them towards meaningful and important things specifically pertinent to them and their life. Sometimes this voice would be coming from a large mass of light floating in front of them.

Now if someone went through life without a thought or care for anything having to do with the important things in life,God and the supernatural, or higher thoughts or philosophical knowledge, then death eliciting these thoughts and visions is something to think about in terms of the supernatural.