# "We've evolved to be creationists" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2007, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445 "2007-06-18T11:26:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/181 "2007-06-29T00:35:33Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] Beg pardon? I don’t “use gutter language.” In addition, you may want to–for apparently the first time in your life–actually review what the thread says before you condemn it out-of-hand. [/QUOTE] No thanks, say what you need to say here. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/182 "2007-06-29T00:39:45Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] I don’t think scientists are the ones having the problem understanding contradictions. If your NDE told you that Jesus can both be God’s son, and not be God’s son simultaneously, then your NDE gave you false information. Perhaps you dreamed it? Imaginings can include false information and treat contradictions as real. There’s a difference between a person with experience, and an expert. I know people who have been using computers for ten years and have no idea how they work. And you haven’t even been dead for _one_ year, much less ten! call again when you’ve logged some _real_ dead-time. More seriously, there _is_ a difference between a person who has experiences something, and a person who knows why it happens. You don’t have to have had an NDE to have some idea of what’s going on. Refusing to listen to the opinons of persons (like brain specialists and scientists) who merely have neglected to have an NDE themselves is **not** wise. It’s like thinking that a person who merely watches a lot of television is better equipped to explain how it works than somebody who _repairs_ televisions. Maybe you would think that, but not me, and not most other people either. And, when somebody says they **know** something, it means one of two things: 1. That the thing is defined to be true (within some artificially created and controlled scenario). An example of this is when I say that I know that 1+1=2. 2. That the person has a very strong belief in the thing, perhaps an absoute personal certainty. This doesn’t mean they’re not wrong, though. An example of this is when I say that I know that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning. NDE-experiencers do not fall under meaning 1. So, they can be wrong. Period. Emphatic personal testimony does not impress me. In my experience, the more fervently the person cries that they are correct, the more likely they’re arguing from emotion and not anything that has any relation to actual reality. [/QUOTE] I appreciate your trying to make sense of it, but that would be impossible without knowledge of what near death experiences really are. Don’t believe anything I say, good, but don’t stop there, find out for yourself, read. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/183 "2007-06-29T00:41:26Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] No thanks, say what you need to say here. [/QUOTE] Ah, so you were lying when you accused \*\*Monty \*\* of using “gutter language”? Add it to the list, ladies and gents! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/184 "2007-06-29T00:50:19Z")
I am going to try an experiment, I will post a link to a near death experience that answers some of the contradition problems posed on this board. This experience has an email address (don’t know if it still works) if you wish to use it. I sincerely hope you show the individual the respect she deserves. > **[A Near Death Experience, No. 34.](https://aleroy.com/board34.htm)** > > A Near Death Experience, No. 34. This experience is typical of a lot of NDEs, though longer than most. If you read it I will try to answer questions you may have, so here is a chance for you to read a real experience written by the one who had it. We will see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/185 "2007-06-29T00:51:53Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] Ah, so you were lying when you accused \*\*Monty \*\* of using “gutter language”? Add it to the list, ladies and gents! 😉 [/QUOTE] Will someone please count them up? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/186 "2007-06-29T00:55:16Z")
I’m afraid I’m only joking. There’s no actual list. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/187 "2007-06-29T01:01:29Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] I appreciate your trying to make sense of it, but that would be impossible without knowledge of what near death experiences really are. Don’t believe anything I say, good, but don’t stop there, find out for yourself, read. [/QUOTE] Why would reading somebody’s testimonial convince me of anything? I am a firm believer in the power of imagination. There’s nothing in an NDE that the NDEr’s mind couldn’t have thought up on it’s own; I don’t believe that there’s anything concievable (much less describable) that can’t be imagined. And if the fervent starry-eyed belief of the NDEr’s supposed to convince me, I assure you it’ll have the opposite effect. Appeals to emotion make me suspicious, not sympathetic. The only possible proof for an NDE is the person accurately describing something unknowable and undeducable that happened in the physical world while they were dead. You think you have numerous examples of that, but all of them you present seem to get rapidly discredited. And if I’m just reading testimonials, I _know_ they’re going to be biased. No doubt about it. So their timelines and dramatic claims will all be absolutely unreliable, and supicious besides. If you have an actual study that objectively demonstrates such otherworldy knowledge, present it here. Don’t expect me to find it. The examples you already have presented seem to get rapidly discredited, though, so I have a hard time believeing that you have something more convincing that you’ve just been saving for a special occasion. So I don’t expect much on that front, either. Really, it’s not so much that I don’t believe anything you say, but I also don’t accept you as an absolute unquestionable authority, either. I _know_ that contradiction is impossible, the meaning 1 version of ‘know’, even! So when you are trying to rationalize contradiction, it can do nothing than damage, strongly damage, your position to me. Simply put, if your worldview relies on the possiblity of contradictions, then your worldview is not true. Period. On preview: Hmm, you have provided a link. I will find time to read it later. I won’t pester the author, though. You prostelyte NDEs and so invite criticism, but I won’t go after someone in thier own inbox. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/188 "2007-06-29T01:17:52Z")
Whoops, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/189 "2007-06-29T03:03:03Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] Have you been keeping count of how many times you have called me a liar? Is there a contest or something? [/QUOTE] I have never called you a liar. I have pointed out numerous occasions in which you have lied. I doubt that you are a liar in the manner of a stereotypical used car salesman or U.S. President. However, you appear to be the sort of True Believer who is willing to imagine that you have access to a Higher Truth that transcends merely ensuring that one’s statements are congruent with facts and that you believe it permissible to state imaginary things as facts, even when those statements do not describe real events. Note that I have never accused you of lying about your personal experiences; I have never accused you of lying about biographical information; I have never accused you of lying about your beliefs regarding your world view. I only note your lies when you persist in saying things about other people that are nothing more than your imagination, painting a world as you need it to be to maintain your beliefs. You keep telling other people to do research on your pet beliefs, yet you are unwilling to examine the false statements you post to see that most of them do not accord with reality. If you wish me to stop pointing out your lies, stop posting lies. Do not lie about what “science” or “scientists” say, stop claiming things have been published in professional journals that have never been published there, and stop posting falsehoods about the actual contents of the few articles that have actually been published. I doubt that I will get through to you, but as long as you persist in posting falsehoods, I will continue to point out that you are ignoring/avoiding/distorting the truth. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/190 "2007-06-29T07:47:15Z")
Well, it’s rather off-topic, but I’ll tell you ( **Lekatt** ) my reactions to the NDE writeup to which you linked. I was disappointed that this person’s “NDE” did not take place in any instance where her supposed death could be verified, such as an operating table or the scene of an accident. Since, after all, that’s where NDE’s actually take place, so far as I understand it - when the person is actually, really, dying. (To her credit she _does_ have a chronic illness, however it seems more painful than fatal.) To me is sounds like she sunk to the depths of depression and then started doing funny things with, and to, her mind. Perhaps she managed to trigger a soft-reboot on her brain, and entered a limited dream-state? Stranger things have happened. It’s interesting to note that her NDE does _not_ sound similar to what I had understood the ‘prototypical NDE’ to be like. There was no tunnel, no meeting dead relatives. Simply some sensations of movement (much like I’ve done to myself at times when half-asleep; I like making my bed ‘rock’; I’ve gotten it to slide and swing up over 90 degrees in each direction - severe rocking indeed! The room before my half-closed eyes never moved, of course), some amorphous images that coincidentally identified with her ingrained concepts of deity, and some powerful emotional sensations. Spiffy, I suppose, but hardly consistent with the stereotype. One supposes maybe there’s lots of different afterlives for various different people. I’m surprised she didn’t kill herself immediately after the vision. God helps those who help themselves they say…and she did say she’d lost her fear of death. Not that I think she _should_ have offed herself…but I sure as hell would have if I had both chronic pain and also absolute certainty in such a happy afterlife. I guess old habits of fearing the Great Heavenly Punisher are hard to break though. …and then it turns into a magic happy esp story. Um. In retrospect it’s interesting to note that she remarked that some _objects_ have sparkles…must be some bored angels out there. I note also that these angels don’t appear to ever actually _do_ anything, except mug for passing sensitives. Though one supposes she perhaps she just hadn’t got around to seeing or mentioning cases where the angels supernaturally ward their charges from danger. And she’s suddenly able to communicate telepathically with these spirits. Well, in for a dime, in for a dollar I suppose… Now, to be entirely fair, she could be one hundred percent correct about everything; she could have actually died, gone to heaven, and felt the loving aura of God that he so lovingly protects us from experiencing in daily life, and then come back to life; and she might now actually in fact have mysteriously gained the ability to see and communicate with omnipresent ineffectual guardian angels. Of course if this is truly the case I should obviously kill myself and as many other people as possible, so as to be able to spread the joy of this heavenly other world to all. But somehow that doesn’t seem like a good idea. Probably because there’s a possibility that she’s merely kicked open the doors to her subconscious and now it’s happily feeding her fanciful sparkling images (and crafting them into the shape of people on request; I note that she’s the one who decides in which form these angels appear to her). If it’s a head trip, it sounds like a really fun head trip, by the way. She also sounds like an obvious candidate to verify the existence of the supernatural right now. She can see these spirit things through walls, right? “From within cars, unfettered by physical barriers, I could see the glow and form of Beings around the occupants.” And she can tell the per-person spirits of different people apart by their looks, right? So put her in a room, and have different people walk by outside the (opaque) walls of the room. If she can tell where people are and when it’s the same person over again (by looking at and recognizing their per-person spirit) with high or perfect reliability (which, from her description, would seem to be a reasonable expectation) then she could prove her unique new insight for all the world, even scientists, to see. Of course, she might not want to become a lab rat, even for the promise of a cool million (care of Randi, of course). And of course if the sparkles and spirits _are_ the by product of a rogue imagination, then the last thing she’s going to want to do is prove that to herself. (Though she could probably just convince herself that the evil scientists scared away the spirits or something.) Hard to say, because lecture circuit or not, I doubt she’ll ever subject herself up for scientific testing. I wouldn’t if I were her, anyway. It’d be more fun to carry on tripping the light fantastic, without risking popping the bubble with the harsh needle of reality. (Just in case it’s not, you know, real.) Say, do _you_ see pretty sparklies? I seem to vaguely recall you did the same lie-down have-NDE get-up this woman did. (Perhaps that’s why you describe it as “typical”.) Does that mean you got the same mysterious powers? Sweet! (Though if you do have such powers, I don’t want you ‘reading’ me. (Presumably the internet and possibly hundreds of miles are no impediment to such vision.) The thought of some invisible angel spirit stalking me and playing voyeur gives me the creeps. I mean, I take _showers_ and stuff.) Oh, and sorry if you feel I’ve been/am being inadequately respectful of your religion or whatever, if you happened to end up feeling that way. But then I never tiptoe around anybody’s religion, so at least I’m fair. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/191 "2007-06-29T14:03:04Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] I was disappointed that this person’s “NDE” did not take place in any instance where her supposed death could be verified, such as an operating table or the scene of an accident. [/quote] Verification is part of the restrictive dogma of science. If something supernatural happens to a single person once in all of human history that’s evidence that it’s true for everybody. Haven’t you been paying attention. > [@](#): > > _It’s interesting to note that her NDE does not sound similar to what I had understood the ‘prototypical NDE’ to be like._ They’re all different. That’s how we know they’re all the same. > [@](#): > > _I’m surprised she didn’t kill herself immediately after the vision._ That is not dead which can eternal lie. > [@](#): > > _Now, to be entirely fair, she could be one hundred percent correct about everything; she could have actually died, gone to heaven, and felt the loving aura of God that he so lovingly protects us from experiencing in daily life, and then come back to life; and she might now actually in fact have mysteriously gained the ability to see and communicate with omnipresent ineffectual guardian angels._ All-One! All-One! Dilute! Dilute! OK! I trust this clarifies the situation for you. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/192 "2007-06-29T14:43:27Z")
To **begbert2** I want to thank you for reading the experience, and say I have no religion. I am on the path of Love as shown in the experience as best as I can be. There really is no typical NDE, while there are some common traits each experience is unique to the individual having them. There are a lot of experiences that happen away from the hospital and doctors, they are just as authentic as those that happen in the OR. I choose this experience because it explained so much of what happens in the spirit world. I like the way it highlights love and shows how fear interfers with everything. It also shows the energy of the spirit around the physical body, called the aura, and how psychics know what they are doing. As for Angels, we all come into the physical with a spirit guide. The physical can be very difficult and even disasterous for some. The spirit guide helps you along the way by sending you suggestions through throught. Some hear them, but most don’t. If you are on the path of love more guides will come to help. They are not here to spy on you – remember the accepting love of the spirit world. It is true that if you could see the spirit guides there would be more of them than physical humans. In this experience her guide picked her up out of the void in which she was falling and took her to the light. It is very good to have one. I met my guide about 4 months after my experience. I was as suprised as she was about them. He is with me nearly all the time. If he is needed somewhere else he will leave, then come back when he can. During 9/11 he was gone for three days. He told me thousands of guides were there helping. I have more than one guide, but TH is my main man. Guides will not interfere with your life, the choices you make are yours alone. They will not give you the winning numbers of a lottery, etc. They make suggestions only. Near death experieners will not kill themselves to return to the spirit world. Death is just not an option. Dannion Brinkley once refused to let doctors operate on his heart so he could die. Dr. Raymond Moody heard about it and was able to talk Dannon into the operation. “Saved by the Light,” a book written by Dannion was made into a movie. It is a good read. I will try to find a more common NDE to link to, but if someone is really interested maybe they should start a new thread about NDEs. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/193 "2007-06-29T15:44:05Z")
To begbert2 I guess I should have address the “testing” part. I know of no experiencer that would “perform” for scientists. When you come back from that kind of experience the last thing you want is to be ridiculed by skeptics. Most experiencers seek other experiencers and form support groups to integrate the experience with the realities of the physical living. It took me three years to feel comfortable living in the physical. It is a noisy, rude, nasty place to be, and allowances must be made to get along with others. When I came out of my experience I could see the same things that she saw, but over 20 years later the energy has lessened somewhat. I can communicate with my guide and some others, but I am not good enough to help others in that manner. I try to help others with my site, teaching the path of love. Here is a more typical NDE, this is the last link, if will answer posts, and if a new thread starts I will participate as I can. > **[A Near Death Experience, No. 12.](https://aleroy.com/board12.htm)** > > A Near Death Experience, No. 12. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/194 "2007-06-29T16:27:34Z")
Based on research, one can not ignore natural explanations. [http://leda.lycaeum.org/index.pl?ID=9264](http://leda.lycaeum.org/index.pl?ID=9264) > [@](#): > > Near-death experiences (NDE’s) can be reproduced by ketamine via blockade of receptors in the brain (the N-methyl-D-aspartate, NMDA receptors) for the neurotransmitter glutamate. Conditions which precipitate NDE’s (hypoxia, ischaemia, hypoglycaemia, temporal lobe epilepsy etc.) have been shown to release a flood of glutamate, overactivating NMDA receptors resulting in neuro (‘excito’) toxicity. Ketamine prevents this neurotoxicity. There are substances in the brain which bind to the same receptor site as ketamine. Conditions which trigger a glutamate flood may also trigger a flood of neuroprotective agents which bind to NMDA receptors to protect cells, leading to an altered state of consciousness like that produced by ketamine. This article extends and updates the theory proposed in 1990 (Jansen, 1990b). > > The near-death experience (NDE) is a phenomenon of considerable importance to medicine, neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, philosophy and religon (Stevenson and Greyson, 1979; Greyson and Stevenson, 1980; Ring, 1980; Sabom, 1982; Jansen, 1989a,b, 1990b). Unfortunately, some scientists have been deterred from conducting research upon the NDE by claims that NDE’s are evidence for life after death, and sensationalist media reports which impart the air of a pseudoscience to NDE studies. Irrespective of religous beliefs, NDE’s are not evidence for life after death on simple logical grounds: death is defined as the final, irreversible end. Anyone who ‘returned’ did not, by definition, die - although their mind, brain and body may have been in a very unusual state. > > There is overwhelming evidence that ‘mind’ results from neuronal activity. The dramatic effects on the mind of adding hallucinogenic drugs to the brain, and the religous experiences which sometimes result, provide further evidence for this (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1981). One of the many contradictions which ‘after-lifers’ can not resolve is that “the spirit rises out of the body leaving the brain behind, but somehow still incorporating neuronal functions such as sight, hearing, and proprioception” (Morse, 1989, original italics). > > All features of a classic NDE can be reproduced by the intravenous administration of 50 - 100 mg of ketamine (Domino et al., 1965; Rumpf ,1969; Collier, 1972; Siegel,1978, 1980,1981; Stafford, 1977; Lilly, 1978; Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1981; White, 1982; Ghoniem et al., 1985; Sputz, 1989; Jansen, 1989a,b, 1990b, 1993). There is increasing evidence which suggests that the reproduction of NDE’s by ketamine is unlikely to be a coincidence. This evidence includes the discovery of the major neuronal binding site for ketamine, known as the phencyclidine (PCP) binding site of the NMDA receptor (Thomson et al., 1985), the importance of NMDA receptors in the cerebral cortex, particularly in the temporal and frontal lobes, the key role of these sites in cognitive processing, memory, and perception, their role in epilepsy, psychoses, hypoxic/ischaemic and epileptic cell damage (excitotoxicity), the prevention of this damage by ketamine, the discovery of substances in the brain called ‘endopsychosins’ which bind to the same site as ketamine, and the role of ions such as magnesium and zinc in regulating the site (Anis et al., 1983; Quirion et al., 1984; Simon et al., 1984; Benveniste et al., 1984; Ben-Ari,1985; Thomson, 1986; Coan and Collingridge, 1987; Collingridge, 1987; Contreras et al., 1987; Rothman et al., 1987; Mody et al., 1987; Quirion et al., 1987; Westbrook and Mayer, 1987; Sonders et al., 1988; Barnes,1988; Choi,1988; Monaghan et al., 1989; Jansen et al., 1989a,b,c, 1990a,b,c, 1991a,b,c, 1993). ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/195 "2007-06-29T17:03:14Z")
I feel I should warn you that, while I’m intellectually curious about your experiences and the experiences of others, I am not convinced that your interpretations of these experiences are consistent with reality. In short terms, you’re not ‘converting’ me. If you feel that I’m ‘leading you on’ or anything, we can stop anytime. In fact, that last link was decidedly _not_ convincing. It was _totally_ dissimilar from the previous one! She fell and was lifted, he just started walking. He reexperienced his life, she did not. She basked in the glowing love of the loving glow, he did not. He was given the choice of staying, she was not. He recieved a “hallucination” instructing him in how to live his life; she did not. She developed into a medium afterwards; there’s no sign that he did in this second account. About the only similarities between the two experiences are that there was darkness at the start, and that the entitity communicated in something like words -neither of which details seems very exceptional. In fact, the only parts of the stories that are notably similar are the events immidiately _prior_ to the “NDE” - and the fact that that he didn’t die either! (What does a guy have to do around here to see a corpse?) He found himself awake and aware during surgery despite anesthetic -a not unheard of and decidedly horrific phenomenon- and that torture caused him to reach a mental resignation point -very much like how long attrition drove the woman in the prior “NDE” account to resign herself- and then suddenly they roll into their (very different) "NDE"s. He, of course, is at a hospital, almost certainly hooked up to monitoring equipment which would have sounded the alarm had his heart stopped. It apparently didn’t, or he’d have mentioned the doctors frantically recussitating him upon his ‘return’. So, he didn’t die. Period. (Does “NDE” mean “NON-Death Experience” or something??) So. The commonality between the stories is in the approximate mental state of the persons leading up to and at the moment of the NDE, and then they “die”, and then everything’s totally different for the entire experience. This sounds _exactly_ like they both tripped some mental switch that sent them lofting into a dreamworld created by their own mind, formed to match their personal imaginations, expectations, and hopes. Certainly they didn’t both die and go to the same afterlife. So one of the experiences was _surely_ a dream, an imagining, a hallucination. And there’s a distinct possiblity that both were. (After all, they seem to have both been caused by similar emotional states.) I find it vaguely disturbing that you see spirits. Of course, I find it vaguely distrubing that my mom has occasional visions sent from God. As expected, her experiences are nothing like yours (if yours are like this woman’s), and in fact they contradict sufficiently in type, style, and content, that they can’t both be “true”. And if one of you must be wrong about things, then maybe both of you are. It seems as likely as not. (It’s still vaguely disturbing how people can retrain their minds so far as to alter their perception of reality though.) (And, yes, this “Path of Light” you prosteletize for would seem to qualify as a religion. Not an _organized_ religion persay, but a religion nonetheless. By my understanding of the term, anyway.) (And I have to give you credit for suggesting we move this hijack to a separate thread. I will not start such a thread, as I would _really_ feel like I was leading you on then.) ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/196 "2007-06-29T17:33:32Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] (Does “NDE” mean “NON-Death Experience” or something??) [/QUOTE] I’m not sure why \*\*lekatt \*\* is using that term, unless he’s using it as a catchall for the general area of this phenomenon, especially since there’s a perfectly good term for it; OBE (Out-of-Body Experience). His own initial experience seems to follow this route of experience without death. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/197 "2007-06-29T17:55:28Z")
[QUOTE=lekatt] As for Angels, we all come into the physical with a spirit guide. The physical can be very difficult and even disasterous for some. The spirit guide helps you along the way by sending you suggestions through throught. Some hear them, but most don’t. If you are on the path of love more guides will come to help. They are not here to spy on you – remember the accepting love of the spirit world. It is true that if you could see the spirit guides there would be more of them than physical humans. In this experience her guide picked her up out of the void in which she was falling and took her to the light. It is very good to have one. I met my guide about 4 months after my experience. I was as suprised as she was about them. He is with me nearly all the time. If he is needed somewhere else he will leave, then come back when he can. During 9/11 he was gone for three days. He told me thousands of guides were there helping. I have more than one guide, but TH is my main man. Guides will not interfere with your life, the choices you make are yours alone. They will not give you the winning numbers of a lottery, etc. They make suggestions only. [/QUOTE] I don’t have much time but I have to say that I really distrust views of the spiritual world that are that limited. Like Carl Sagan said, there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. If there are beings based on unconditional love they will approach all people, the ones having big experiences or not. [QUOTE=lekatt] I guess I should have address the “testing” part. I know of no experiencer that would “perform” for scientists. When you come back from that kind of experience the last thing you want is to be ridiculed by skeptics. [/QUOTE] And I said this before, but this is ignored by people like you: that is supposed to be love? To not make an effort to investigate this properly because it is inconvenient? I can imagine many things that could benefit mankind by finding a proper explanation of phenomena that some see or claim to have. The point is, I do not see love when people that claim they have something special just act in the end secretively and refuse to be subject to investigation, history is filled of items that were used even if there was only a mystical explanation of them, the key however was this: they did work, more or less. Items that turned to have seemingly mundane explanations, in the long run benefit all believers or unbelievers alike. Like for example the treatment of Malaria and other diseases, for hundreds of years it was thought that disease was coming from bad air, even an early examination of statistical information regarding cholera in England showed the data to fit with the idea that bad air from the Thames was responsible (the closest to the river, more cholera cases), however the investigator noticed that while there seemed to be a correlation it was not correct. I can only imagine what would had happened if they would not had pressed ahead because the current explanation was good enough or if the ridicule those early researches had to suffer had been their guide. What happened was that it was found cholera had a connection with water in contact with sewage, London then invested in sewage control and the result: no more cholera. Even though then it was not known yet that cholera was caused by microscopic beings. The countless lives saved or improved in that and other cases show to me more love than your sorry excuse why not to investigate a strange phenomenon in the proper way. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/198 "2007-06-29T18:10:31Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] The countless lives saved or improved in that and other cases show to me more love than your sorry excuse why not to investigate a strange phenomenon in the proper way. [/QUOTE] Hey now, nobody can accuse **lekatt** of not trying to get the word out - he simply has chosen not to do it in a way that risks proving that that his experiences, spirits, spirit _guide_- that all of that is a production of his own mind. And if I had one of these NDE-see-spirits things, I’d surround myself with supporters rather than skeptics too. It sounds like a real trip\* to be able to be a medium and whatnot, and I wouldn’t want some irritatingly _logical_ scientist raining on my parade. The fact that **lekatt** comes _here_ is frankly amazing, given that. - Though actually I’d rather have telekinesis than spirit guides. (Spirit guides still creep me out. They only help you out if you’re special, but they tail you either way. And they can be of the opposite gender from you! :eek: ) Yeah, I’d rather have TK. Whee, look at the things fly through the air! ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/199 "2007-06-29T18:28:28Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] Based on research, one can not ignore natural explanations. [http://leda.lycaeum.org/index.pl?ID=9264](http://leda.lycaeum.org/index.pl?ID=9264) [/QUOTE] One can not ignore any explanations, I am glad you posted the writing by Karl Jansen, he is an email friend of mine. We exchanged emails while he was writing a book. There was a section on NDEs, and he asked me what I thought. I found it hard to get some actual Ketamine experiences, but did come up with a couple. I am glad you posted this because it will give me a chance to compare the near death experience with the Ketamine experience. There really is very little comparison between the two, some elements are similar, but the major parts of the near death experience are missing, such as conversations with spirit beings, life reviews, etc. So, I will show you the two Ketamine experiences that I do have and my comments on them, if you wish to find out the differences. > **[A Near Death Experience, No. 147.](https://aleroy.com/board147.htm)** > > A Near Death Experience, No. 147. > **[A Near Death Experience, No. 205.](https://aleroy.com/board205.htm)** > > A Near Death Experience, No. 205. I realize this is pretty frightening stuff to many, but perhaps some will like to know. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445/200 "2007-06-29T18:38:13Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] I feel I should warn you that, while I’m intellectually curious about your experiences and the experiences of others, I am not convinced that your interpretations of these experiences are consistent with reality. In short terms, you’re not ‘converting’ me. If you feel that I’m ‘leading you on’ or anything, we can stop anytime. In fact, that last link was decidedly _not_ convincing. It was _totally_ dissimilar from the previous one! She fell and was lifted, he just started walking. He reexperienced his life, she did not. She basked in the glowing love of the loving glow, he did not. He was given the choice of staying, she was not. He recieved a “hallucination” instructing him in how to live his life; she did not. She developed into a medium afterwards; there’s no sign that he did in this second account. About the only similarities between the two experiences are that there was darkness at the start, and that the entitity communicated in something like words -neither of which details seems very exceptional. In fact, the only parts of the stories that are notably similar are the events immidiately _prior_ to the “NDE” - and the fact that that he didn’t die either! (What does a guy have to do around here to see a corpse?) He found himself awake and aware during surgery despite anesthetic -a not unheard of and decidedly horrific phenomenon- and that torture caused him to reach a mental resignation point -very much like how long attrition drove the woman in the prior “NDE” account to resign herself- and then suddenly they roll into their (very different) "NDE"s. He, of course, is at a hospital, almost certainly hooked up to monitoring equipment which would have sounded the alarm had his heart stopped. It apparently didn’t, or he’d have mentioned the doctors frantically recussitating him upon his ‘return’. So, he didn’t die. Period. (Does “NDE” mean “NON-Death Experience” or something??) So. The commonality between the stories is in the approximate mental state of the persons leading up to and at the moment of the NDE, and then they “die”, and then everything’s totally different for the entire experience. This sounds _exactly_ like they both tripped some mental switch that sent them lofting into a dreamworld created by their own mind, formed to match their personal imaginations, expectations, and hopes. Certainly they didn’t both die and go to the same afterlife. So one of the experiences was _surely_ a dream, an imagining, a hallucination. And there’s a distinct possiblity that both were. (After all, they seem to have both been caused by similar emotional states.) I find it vaguely disturbing that you see spirits. Of course, I find it vaguely distrubing that my mom has occasional visions sent from God. As expected, her experiences are nothing like yours (if yours are like this woman’s), and in fact they contradict sufficiently in type, style, and content, that they can’t both be “true”. And if one of you must be wrong about things, then maybe both of you are. It seems as likely as not. (It’s still vaguely disturbing how people can retrain their minds so far as to alter their perception of reality though.) (And, yes, this “Path of Light” you prosteletize for would seem to qualify as a religion. Not an _organized_ religion persay, but a religion nonetheless. By my understanding of the term, anyway.) (And I have to give you credit for suggesting we move this hijack to a separate thread. I will not start such a thread, as I would _really_ feel like I was leading you on then.) [/QUOTE] That’s fine we can stop, don’t want to cause you more alarm. The main reason NDEs can’t be analyzed is because they are personal experiences. But some things can be studied and are being studied by research scientists, things like veridical experiences. Relax now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weve-evolved-to-be-creationists/408445.md?page=11)