So, a dear friend of mine had an NDE (Near-Death Experience) last year after a car accident. Since then, we've been reading everything we can find about NDEs.

The thing that strikes me is you never hear of anyone being told that there is only one religion! Surely people would come back with a message that the Mormon Church is “the one true church” and only way to go, if that was truly the case... surely God would direct them to the proper earthly path. But not once in all the recorded NDEs that I have read do we ever come across such a message or anything even remotely close. Which can only mean that it is untrue and that organized religion itself is unimportant in God’s plan.

On the contrary, these people return with the message that “it’s all about love, acceptance, and understanding”, and helping make earth a better place for others.

Hmmm....

That's really interesting and I had never thought of that.

Mormons LOVE NDE stories and somehow use them as proof that the church is true.

I'll have to point this out to them when I hear NDE's brought up in the future.

My MIL had a near-death experience after the birth of her last child. She found herself in a beautiful place and was given the choice to return and raise her kids, but struggle with huge health problems her whole life or stay. She chose to go back to her kids.

Later, she was introduced to a GA and described the scene of her NDE and asked him "Was that the Celestial Kingdom? Did I make it?" and the GA solemnly assured her that the place she described was the Celestial Kingdom and she did well and should continue faithful. That story still makes me mad, because of the profound arrogance the GA showed in using my MIL's experience to promote his agenda.

But I agree - I think the message you said people return with is the bottom line "it's all about love, acceptance and understanding." The whole idea that "our message is the only true way to live" is not only nonsense - it's a sign of a mind control cult.

CA girl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My MIL had a near-death experience after the birth
> of her last child. She found herself in a
> beautiful place and was given the choice to return
> and raise her kids, but struggle with huge health
> problems her whole life or stay. She chose to go
> back to her kids.
>
> Later, she was introduced to a GA and described
> the scene of her NDE and asked him "Was that the
> Celestial Kingdom? Did I make it?" and the GA
> solemnly assured her that the place she described
> was the Celestial Kingdom and she did well and
> should continue faithful. That story still makes
> me mad, because of the profound arrogance the GA
> showed in using my MIL's experience to promote his
> agenda.
>
> But I agree - I think the message you said people
> return with is the bottom line "it's all about
> love, acceptance and understanding." The whole
> idea that "our message is the only true way to
> live" is not only nonsense - it's a sign of a mind
> control cult.


He told her what she wanted to hear (and what would have her keep paying her 10% to the Morg)

According to Mormonism: NO ONE gets the Celestial Kingdom until after Jesus comes back and Satan is bound for SMBD session and then is loosed again for another period.

After THAT Jesus then gives a final judgement and the kingdoms are established.

While Mormon Doctrine is dumb and hard to nail down, it bugs me that even the GAs don't care enough to get it right or be consistent within themselves.

According to Mormon doctrine, this chick made it to Paradise to await resurrection.

Mormons do not believe that when you die you immediately go to one of the three kingdoms. You go to either spirit prison or spirit paradise and there await Judgment day where everyone will find out what kingdom they will inherit.

a thousand years?? what do we do for that whole time??? inquiring minds wanna know!! :)

Masturbating.

Hey, I can't deny it till I try it. When is the next general conference?

I too share your interest in NDE's and have
followed similar reasoning. If they are valid, as I believe some are, they certainly would seem to
run counter to the first and most important claim of the church, being that it is the one and only true church of god.

If I hadn't had one - I would not believe in them. Still remains clear in my mind but still confused about it after 45 years.

Great Link WWW.NDERF.ORG

(not smart enough to make a real link)

JB

I have three books which are dedicated to only Mormon near-death experiences, which is a big reason I put no stock in such experiences anymore.

They saw Joseph Smith at a Temple with Jesus. They asked if the Church was true and were assured that it was. They showed themselves to be missionaries for the Church, etc.

Trying to disprove Mormonism through NDEs is just as ridiculous as trying to prove Mormonism via a burning in the bosom.

Seriously, millions of Mormons manifest fake spiritual experiences every day, usually through the burning in the bosom or the good feeling after a well told Mormon myth. They base their spiritual beliefs on that. Do you really think that your friend's one fake spiritual experience can run as a counter to that?

Sorry, but, Mormonism wins this contest.

Greyfort, I see your point. However, I was referring to only the non-Mormon experiences (as Mormons are so delusional that they will believe anything they are brainwashed to believe). You know how doctors say that a person in a coma can still hear you - I wonder if some of these people are hearing outside activities (such as someone giving them a priesthood blessing) that is influencing their experiences on a subconscious level. Does that make sense? It could, of course, be a possibility with non-members also -- Like, maybe someone says "Come back!" and they somehow twist that into thinking that they were being told by angelic beings to go back. But only Mormons use certain terminology that might trigger something in their brainwashed minds.

The website that JustBrowsing posted is very intriguing and even has some experiences from people in eastern countries, thus removing the culture and mentality of western influences that may be affecting outcomes. Thanks for the link!

snb, I disagree. If one was taking into account the Mormon NDEs, then you would be absolutely correct. However, when taking into account the many, many NON-Mormon NDEs on record, it's a different ballgame...

...so yeah, I definitely agree with that point. For my point to be valid, we'd have to put both sets of data up to see which group of people is more ridiculous.

Really though, it wasn't my point.

How do you say that Mormons are delusional while you yourself believes in NDEs? I can't see how that belief is any better than the belief in magical underwear...

Edit: I was terribly unclear.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2011 01:11AM by snb.

I am a rational, qualified, mechanical and quality control engineer, and I deal every with exact measurements, with precise results, BUT I CAN"T EXPLAIN ANY OF THE FOLLOWING.

There is a book which is a very balanced perspective called "Hello from Heaven" by Bill and Judy Guggenheim. .

Literally hundreds of pages filled with NDE's and After-Life experiences of every type and every description, yet there is **NOT A MORMON IN SIGHT**. So perhaps when all us exmo crowd gets there, they won't be bothered by TBM's after all. It appears from the experiences, that heaven is exactly where and what you want it to be.

Having studied extensively for many years on the subject and events of the after life experiences of others, I still can't come to grips with my after life experience even after 45 years.

JB

I read that book.

Allegiance to a particular religion does not seem to matter in the hereafter.

In all cases the 2 questions that DO matter are

a) How much have you grown through your life experiences?

b) How have you treated others?


Mormonism seems more like hell to me.

oddly, my NDE pushed me farther from religion..... because what I saw was nothing like the impression of the after life I got when religion ( the LDS church ) talked about the after life. Nothing like it.

Were you TBM when you had your near death experience? Semi-active? Non-LDS? I am fascinated because I also had a near-death experience which I have yet to figure out.

I am interested in NDEs, mainly because my brother had one a few years ago. He saw our grandpa and his unborn daughter. It really changed him. He was always a good guy, but he became a much more free person. He cares a lot less about what people think, and he is a lot less judgmental of others.

I am also intrigued by Dimethyltryptamine, DMT, which is created in the body. Some say that it might be DMT that causes NDEs, as DMT is a very powerful hallucinogen. DMT stories sound similar to NDE stories.

Next, I have listened to several NDEs from people in different cultures. If you listen to Americans, they talk about going toward a white light. If you talk to Japanese about their NDE, they talk about crossing a river. That's because the different after-life narratives differ by culture. So sometimes, we just see what we believe.

Since I haven't had an NDE, and I don't really plan on having one, I can only write about what I've read. I do find it exciting that those who have had NDEs say they have no more interest in religion after an NDE.

Come on guys, my own near death experience led me to
mormonism, the angel mornoni appeared showing me the
temple in the midst. But the bible says the dead are
concious of nothing until the resurrection.
While alive, even if brain dead for short time, one can
be away for years, when its only minuetes, longest recorded
was 9 minuetes, by the woman who wrote embraced by the light
almost joined the lds church but later rejected it.

See jacobs ladder movie, tom hanks, he lived a whole year
while on army camp operating table for 2 hours before died
and was back in usa from war, enjoying a whole new life
new marrige that never existed. At end of movie his dead
son met down the stair way of his house called him to
his real wife, as the other didnt exist..

all brain tricks before real death, BLANK nothing flatline
including brain completly dead...

We might even experience the future while dead, our own
funeral,that hasnt happened yet...

But once dead thats it sleep until resurection.
those in christ made immortal, those not in christ
made mortal again, to die 2nd death...

no hells fire just no existance, no spirit world,
no 3 degrees of glory heaven, just either gods charactor
in our forehead or not, tho some will have greater charactor
but those less charactor still saved..

chararctor is the reward in heaven. better get started
and devolpe charactor and not be a punny wishy washy
prick. the less new age spirit world contact of the occult
the more sanity and escape from demonic entities even
those who appear in mormon temples that i have seen
discuised as ancestors....

until completely brain dead, we can live years in spirit
tho not have spirit just imaginantion that comforts the dead
before actaully really dead, brain dead and then
ressurection...

I might be wrong, but all demonic appearances have stopped
since believing this and sanity back.

Its not about feeling Wow and all, but conviction of bible
word, and cast out all ghosts etc as demonic even our
beloved dead ancestor, depart ya son of a bitch, just
a demon suttle comforting bullshit artist, false angel
of light...

Maybe i should be athiest but still believe in resurrection
thats it..

Larry.

Didn't you once post before about "Jacob's Ladder?" It 's NOT A TOM HANKS movie. It's a Tim Robbins movie and it's about the effects of psychotropic drugs tested on Vietnam soldiers and the detrimental effects. What the hell movie did you watch?

Years ago I heard a woman describe to an exmo group her NDE. She was very TBM at the time, and pregnant. She started to hemorrhage badly and was taken to the hospital, where they were trying to save her life. She felt she was dying, and her only thought was "I haven't finished my genealogy yet!" She then had her NDE and was in this heavenly place, and she got the shock of her life: none of the people there were Mormons! When she "came back" she left the church.

Well ... unfortunately, I do know of one such NDE.

The following is from a book I'm writing. The topic of this section was concerned with whether or not Mormons believed that JS had been resurrected. Here's my extract:

In 1920, The Relief Society Magazine published “A Testimony” by Elder Peter E. Johnson, who was called on a mission to Mississippi in 1898. While there, he contracted malaria and became deathly ill. Johnson records that “I felt that I would prefer death, rather than live and endure the fever and the agony through which I was passing.” At one point, he reported having a near-death experience:

… I made the choice that I would rather die. Soon after that, my spirit left the body; just how I cannot tell. But I perceived myself standing some four or five feet in the air, and saw my body lying on the bed.

After meeting some of his deceased family members, Johnson was taken to meet with “some of the apostles who had lived on the earth in this dispensation.” They told him that, if he chose to remain on earth, he would preach the gospel under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Johnson continues:

This remark brought to my mind a question which has been much discussed here, as to whether or not the Prophet Joseph Smith is now a resurrected being. While I did not ask the question, they read it in my mind, and immediately said: “You wish to know whether the prophet has his body or not?” I replied: “Yes, I would like to know.” I was told that the Prophet Joseph Smith has his body, as also his brother Hyrum, and that as soon as I could do more with my body than I could do without it, my body would be resurrected.

=================================

Here's the footnote ref:

Elder Peter E. Johnson, “A Testimony,” The Relief Society Magazine 7, No. 1 (January 1920): 450-452. Available at http://www.archive.org/stream/reliefsocietymag07reli#page/n0/mode/2up.

I thank you all for your thoughts and opinions and am glad that we can stay calm and respectful in a lively debate.

MormonRealityCheck, that is interesting but I do have a few question marks -- how do we know the man in question was medically dead? The NDEs that I am referring to all have some sort of physical evidence that the person was indeed medically dead at the time. If he was not truly medically dead, he could have simply been dreaming or hallucinating.

If Mormonism was the true church, they wouldn't need to have such a thing happen in their own NDEs because they would already be members of the enlightened path, correct? My train of thought with this was excluding all Mormon NDEs and focusing solely on those who were of another religion or no religion at all. Surely, I thought, God would want them to have the truth and would guide them to "the one true church" if it indeed existed.

But there are NO RECORDED instances of a verifiable NDE (where a person was medically dead) in which a NON-MORMON was told to join the Mormon Church. That is what I was trying to get at. :)

Your points are completely valid and relavent.

We can certainly question whether this man was "clinically" dead or not. I completely agree with you there. I guess the thing that got my attention was that the circumstances (being very ill, near the point of death perhaps), and the "standard" aspects of his story (floating in the air above the body, speaking with dead acquaintances/relatives, etc) would seem to qualify this experience as an NDE. I mean, it certainly "sounds" like a NDE to me.

Your second point is very good. I remember reading somewhere that Carl Sagan (the famous scientist) once said that all religious experience is "local" (or something to that effect.) He was pointing out that, for example, a Hindu doesn't kneel down to pray, and ask about the "true" belief, and then suddenly stand up and say, "God has told me that Mormonism is the only true belief system!" In other words, whatever religion we espouse (if, indeed, we espouse a religion at all), is based on our local experience. If you're born in the Southeastern United States, chances are you will be Protestant, and within that, likely a Baptist of some sort. If you're born in India, you'll probably be a Hindu.

In other words, the "feels good" test, which is so loved by Mormons, is NOT a good truth test. It yields too many false positives. That's because EVERYONE feels good about the belief system they have selected. Unfortunately (and obviously) the fact that it Feels good does not make it true.

And finally, my information is the same as yours - I do not know of ANY non-Mormon who has experienced an NDE and then converted to Mormonism as a direct result of the NDE.

Thanks!

Another thing about NDEs is when children experience them. They lack the cultural programming of adults and so one might think they have the "pure" experience.

What child NDEs have in common is that they see living people they know. They haven't been around long enough to know people who are now dead and have the expectation of seeing them. So their brain gives them what they know which is living people.

to answer if I was an active member when I had my NDE, not terribly. At this point in my life, I was keeping a distance from religion and the NDE pushed me farther away. I summed it up to my oxygen depraved brain having a hallucination. Nothing more, nothing less. But if that is what happens when you die, it will seem like you go into an afterlife, so it is all good.

For a long time I (an atheist) believed that NDEs somehow indicated a non-physical existence, especially after my atheist wife almost choked to death while eating and had a typical NDE. Then I came across the scientific explanation for such experiences.

"G-LOC (G-force induced Loss of Consciousness) is regularly experienced by lots of military aircraft during fast maneuvers of their jet panes. To prepare them for this physical stress on their circulatory system and its effects on the brain, they ride the world’s largest centrifuge that has the capacity to spin at more than forty-eight times a minute. As soon as the pilot blacks out, the centrifuge slows down and the pilot regains consciousness. However, the centrifuge also produces some of the elements of NDEs, including "out of body experiences" (OBE). NDE elements can also be experienced in the normal dream state and through electrical probes used to stimulate the cortex of the brain during surgery. "

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/triggers06.html "The Trigger of Gravity"
http://skepdic.com/nde.html
http://youtube.com/watch?v=714AS39CQ_I (Penn & Teller video)

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=120&sid=45d1053a14540820de76e04e8d2f4dcf

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/si91nde.html

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=40204

http://www.chafer.edu/journal/back_issues/v3n1-br.pdf

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-06-18.html#feature

... common elements of NDEs and how that relates to the concept of "hallucination".

From what I've read (and I certainly do not claim expertise in the study of NDEs), the stories related by those who have experienced them often contain many common elements. Such as:

Out of body experiences
Witnessing events occuring at a distance (i.e., in another room, etc)
Encounters with acquantances/relatives
The bright light/tunnel
A sense of peace/love/caring/etc...
Life review (seeing one's life flash before one's eyes)

I've read that people who have experienced an NDE often perceive the experience as something "real", unlike dreams (which may feel real while we're having them, but when we wake, we soon understand it to have only been a dream.) I've also read that it is not uncommon for a person who has experienced an NDE to actually undergo a transformation in their life following the experience. In other words, the experience semes to have had a profound impact on them, and they actually begin to perceive their lives in a different way than before.

Though I'm not discounting that hallucinations could have such effects, it is my understanding that hallucinations (which, of course, likely covers a rather broad range of experiences) would not generally be expected to provide such a common set of experiences across people of different backgrounds. Also, I don't know whether hallucinations are generally responsible for profound changes in a person's worldview.

At any rate, I may be at the point you were at some time in the past ... I am not entirely convinced that NDEs can be completely explained as "Hallucination". Nor am I willing to accept them as evidence of conciousness apart from our physical bodies.

I do find it very curious, however, that the "universe" (i.e., whatever it is that brought us into existence ... mathematics, physics, what have you) would "provide" for humanity a calm, peaceful, "transforming" experience at the point of death. Certainly there could be no evolutionary benefit to such a "mechanism". It would not promote survival, hence one would conclude that it would not be an artifact of evolution.

Whence then? Pure chance?

I don't have an answer.

"Remember what I said about people seein' a bright light before they die? It ain't true. I can't see a damn thing."