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View Full Version : Afterlife exists says top brain surgeon



Cypher
10-10-2012, 07:24 AM
This was a touching account and figured I would post it here since a lot of the posters are Christians. This is not meant to be a debate or flame fest for the haters so please start another thread if that's what you want to do.

In the past I've made comments about how you can't take away someones spiritual experience and this is a good example.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9597345/Afterlife-exists-says-top-brain-surgeon.html


Dr Eben Alexander, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, fell into a coma for seven days in 2008 after contracting meningitis.

During his illness Dr Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion "shut down" and that he then experienced "something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death." In an essay for American magazine Newsweek, which he wrote to promote his book Proof of Heaven, Dr Alexander says he was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman in a "place of clouds, big fluffy pink-white ones" and "shimmering beings".

He continues: "Birds? Angels? These words registered later, when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms." The doctor adds that a "huge and booming like a glorious chant, came down from above, and I wondered if the winged beings were producing it. the sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but doesn't get you wet."

Dr Alexander says he had heard stories from patients who spoke of outer body experiences but had disregarded them as "wishful thinking" but has reconsidered his opinion following his own experience.

He added: "I know full well how extraordinary, how frankly unbelievable, all this sounds. Had someone even a doctor told me a story like this in the old days, I would have been quite certain that they were under the spell of some delusion.
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"But what happened to me was, far from being delusional, as real or more real than any event in my life. That includes my wedding day and the birth of my two sons." He added: "I've spent decades as a neurosurgeon at some of the most prestigous medical institutions in our country. I know that many of my peers hold as I myself did to the theory that the brain, and in particular the cortex, generates consciousness and that we live in a universe devoid of any kind of emotion, much less the unconditional love that I now know God and the universe have toward us.

"But that belief, that theory, now lies broken at our feet. What happened to me destroyed it."

Altarboy
10-10-2012, 09:44 AM
I believe in the afterlife but have questions when I hear of somone who has claimed to see it.

Cypher
10-10-2012, 10:09 AM
I believe in the afterlife but have questions when I hear of somone who has claimed to see it.

It's not like this was a 19 year old working at McDonalds, nothing against those working at McDonalds, this was a neurosurgeon that was an atheist before the experience, people like that don't lightly make comments about this type of thing. I generally take it with a grain of salt when people claim a spiritual experience like this. Not that I don't believe in it I just know how easy it is for people to muddy things up with their own ideas.

Diesel
10-10-2012, 10:12 AM
As a Jew we believe in reincarnation within 11 months after death...nuf said.

Diesel 88888888

N/A
10-10-2012, 11:32 AM
As a Jew we believe in reincarnation within 11 months after death...nuf said.

Diesel 88888888

Are you reincarnated as a Hindu?

Tomac yokctep
10-10-2012, 12:01 PM
But isn't also written that the dead have no thoughts, As for reincarnation Diesel is that a Orthodox belief ?

was_peacemaker
10-10-2012, 04:16 PM
As a Jew we believe in reincarnation within 11 months after death...nuf said.

Diesel 88888888


A few do....others believe you burn in Gehenna for 12 months and then are judged after your purified. Oh...and remember the angels fan the flames down on Shabbat. ;)

308
10-10-2012, 04:49 PM
As a Jew we believe in reincarnation within 11 months after death...nuf said.

Diesel 88888888
Obviously not a Sadducee I see. :)

raxar
10-10-2012, 05:27 PM
I believe in the afterlife but have questions when I hear of somone who has claimed to see it.

+1. Personally I think it's just synapses in the brain firing in such a way that it creates hallucinations, same as alien abductions.

I also lean toward the idea that the "after life" doesn't start immediately after you die.

Diesel
10-10-2012, 05:40 PM
Are you reincarnated as a Hindu?

Nope.

Diesel 88888888

N/A
10-11-2012, 06:07 PM
https://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/12/9/16/UMLzQOJNCUO8CsPXK8n1PQ2.jpg

alismith
10-11-2012, 06:48 PM
This is not proof. At best, it's "soft evidence." Unless someone actually brings an angel back, or some other being that can't be explained (as in divine) as part of the natural world, then this fanciful "vision" can never be deemed "proof."

It's exactly the same thing as saying Bigfoot exists because people have taken pictures and videos of him and have found his footprints. All of that is soft evidence, too. Until someone, actually, brings back a body, or skin, or hair whose DNA shows it to be an un-identified animal, I will remain sketical of his existence.

Being in a coma doesn't qualify as a valid reason to be able to "see" the afterlife, just as being neurosurgeon doesn't, in and of itself, give more credence to his claim.

Some people, under the influence of drugs, get the idea that they now possess the ability to fly like a bird. They become so convinced of this, that they throw themselves off bridges and skyscrapers. So far, all they've "proven" is that humans have mastered the concept of vertical flight, but have yet to prove any human has mastered the ability to fly horizontally, without using some sort of machine.

No matter how convinced Dr. Alexander is of his vision, I still remain skeptical.

N/A
10-11-2012, 06:57 PM
No matter how convinced Dr. Alexander is of his vision, I still remain skeptical.

That's fine....he's convinced. It's like me telling you I've experienced ghost, but you remain skeptical because I didn't drag one into this realm kicking and screaming for you to see.

Your skeptism..your doubts...nothing more than your lack of having experienced anything.

alismith
10-11-2012, 08:07 PM
That's fine....he's convinced. It's like me telling you I've experienced ghost, but you remain skeptical because I didn't drag one into this realm kicking and screaming for you to see.Your skeptism..your doubts...nothing more than your lack of having experienced anything.

If you do this, then you will hav done what Dr. Alexander failed to do. I would be a fool to remain skeptical, especially when there is tangible evidence, however, no matter how convinced Dr. Alexander is, there is still no proof. He has proven nothing. He has made claims, but he has proven nothing.

I don't doubt that Dr. Alexander saw what he claims to have seen. I don't think he would deliberately lie about this, but for him to claim that his vision is "proof" is unfounded.

Now, if he claimed that he had this vision and it convinced him there was an afterlife, then I would believe that (not that there is an afterlife, but that his vision convinced him). Trying to convince me of an afterlife, based on his vision, wouldn't convince me, at all.

I read the article, looking for the "proof." I found no proof.

Cypher
10-11-2012, 10:36 PM
If you do this, then you will hav done what Dr. Alexander failed to do. I would be a fool to remain skeptical, especially when there is tangible evidence, however, no matter how convinced Dr. Alexander is, there is still no proof. He has proven nothing. He has made claims, but he has proven nothing.

I don't doubt that Dr. Alexander saw what he claims to have seen. I don't think he would deliberately lie about this, but for him to claim that his vision is "proof" is unfounded.

Now, if he claimed that he had this vision and it convinced him there was an afterlife, then I would believe that (not that there is an afterlife, but that his vision convinced him). Trying to convince me of an afterlife, based on his vision, wouldn't convince me, at all.

I read the article, looking for the "proof." I found no proof.

Personally, I'm not using this as a way to try and provide proof of anything. It does not sway me in any shape or form, from my own experiences I know it is true, if he came out tomorrow and said haha it was all a big joke it would make 0 difference to me.

I don't blame you for being skeptical, by nature I am a very skeptical person about most things and I think that is a good way to look at just about anything at first.

Maybe it doesn't make sense, maybe stories like this stick in the back of a person’s mind and some day something happens and they are reminded of it, maybe it's in one ear and out the other and never thought of again.

I think it's silly to say unless he drags an angle back there is no proof, although I can understand someone not taking this as proof. The fact that he is a neurosurgeon, was a non believer, and has intricate knowledge of the brain, how it works, and the condition he was in does give him much more credibility than some average Joe in my opinion.

It's hard to explain on one side. In one way there is no proof as in you jump on a space ship and go say hi to God but on the other hand on a personal level there is proof in my life every day in my walk with God. There is proof to be found to those that want to find it.