I would love to hear your story. Interest in this subject as a teen lead to my becoming a Christian. You may also discuss experiences that others have shared with you.
Last edited by cfiscel; 19th July 2012 at 12:40 AM.
Reason: Clarification
I would love to hear your story. Interest in this subject as a teen lead to my becoming a Christian. You may also discuss experiences that others have shared with you.
I began studying the near death experience accounts in 1990 after reading a Psychology Today article on the subject.
Since that time I have became a little obsessed with the subject because frankly, I had been taught a very dogmatic version of the "soul sleep" doctrine since I was a teenager!
The NDE of Howard STorm answered many of my nine year old daughters questions regarding what happens to us after death! I read his book My Descent Into Death a couple of years ago.
Have you heard about the NDE of the little guy, Burpo yet?
Jesus gives him a tour of four different dimensions in the afterlife. They both fly toward a large city on Earth where they notice a group of assembly-line workers at work. He witnesses the spirit of a woman trying desperately to obtain a cigarette from the workers who are oblivious to her presence. This woman died severely addicted to cigarettes.
In a house, Jesus shows him the spirit of a boy following a living teenage girl and begging for forgiveness while the girl is completely unaware of the boy's presence. Jesus tells George that the boy committed suicide and is "chained to every consequence of his act."
Jesus shows George a bar filled with sailors who are heavily drinking. Spirits try desperately and in vain to get a drink or to control the sailors' alcoholic behavior. These spirits are from humans who die severely alcoholic. He is horrified as he observes a drunken sailor pass out and an alcoholic spirit jump into the body of the sailor.
Jesus takes him to a new dimension away from Earth and shows him a kind of "receiving station" where spirits would arrive in a deep hypnotic sleep because of their beliefs. These are spirits who believe they must sleep after death until Jesus returns.
Jesus shows him a dimension where angry spirits are locked in hand-to-hand combat, trying in vain to hurt each other. He hears verbal abuse going on. He observes some trying in vain to get sexual gratification from each other. He also sees spirits arguing over some religious or political point and trying to kill the ones who did not agree with them. Here, he realizes he is seeing hell. These are spirits who are locked into some earthly desire that went beyond the physical and which cannot be satisfied in the spirit.
He is then taken to a different dimension appearing like an enormous university. Here he observes people dressed as monks engaged in some form of artistic behavior or research. He is taken into an enormous library where all the important books of the universe are assembled. He asks Jesus if this is heaven. He replies that these are the people who grew beyond selfish desires while on Earth. George realizes these people cannot see Jesus, just as the others could not see him in hell.
Having researched this topic extensively I now have to look at the words of the Apostle Paul in a whole new light!!!!!
II Corinthians 12:2-4:
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; ) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; )
How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
The number one conclusion I came to after rethinking these verses by Paul was that if the Apostle Paul refused to be dogmatic on this subject....then I had better not attempt to speak with authority on a subject that I certainly did not understand with authority?????!!!!
I would love to hear your story. Interest in this subject as a teen lead to my becoming a Christian. You may also discuss experiences that others have shared with you.
My near death experience.
When I was 16 years old I was driving my dad's car on an icy road in the country on Thanksgiving Day. I lost control of the car and it rolled over. I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, this was many years ago. I nearly died, but I came out of that accident without a single scratch. The car was a total wreck. That's my near death experience. What do you think?
I don't at all doubt the stories, but the theology taught by "Jesus" in them can sometimes be very different from what we read in the NT. Be careful.
__________________ In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. -John 1:3
This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and that life is in his son. He who has the son has life; he who does not have the son does not have life. -1 John 5:11
I don't at all doubt the stories, but the theology taught by "Jesus" in them can sometimes be very different from what we read in the NT. Be careful.
I may be seriously in error but I have came to strongly suspect the difference between what Rabbi Jesus/Yehoshua taught while he was human was related to linear time but now that He is in His glorified form He can comment on a much longer term plan which includes what we might come to be shown is that perhaps time branches like a menorah, or simply "timelessness?!?!"
Do you believe that Rabbi Jesus/Yehoshua is entirely overjoyed with a plan of many called but only few chosen and an Auschwitz type of environment in higher dimensions of space-time is all too real?????
Those statements are true but once time like a menorah with branches or timelessness itself is fully revealed then many called, few chosen, a broad way leading to destruction that many find and a narrow way leading to life, is probably not the ultimate paradigm?!
I strongly suspect that the Apostle Paul was coming rather close to revealing some of those "unlawful" ideas that he had been shown in this series of passages:
Romans 11:30
For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable [are] his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Timelessness or time like a menorah may eventually explain all the differences between Rabbi Jesus/Yehoshua's teachings while he was human, vs what He teaches now that He is again in His glorified form?!?!
[6] For my angel is with you: And I myself will demand an account of your souls.
This verse in the Catholic Bible may reveal the being of light who meets people at the time of death, and asks a question along the line of "what did you do with your life that you can show me" may be none other than the God of Abraham/YHWh the Logos/Word who became Rabbi Jesus/Yehoshua??????
Last edited by DennisTate; 1st August 2012 at 11:32 AM.
When I was 16 years old I was driving my dad's car on an icy road in the country on Thanksgiving Day. I lost control of the car and it rolled over. I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, this was many years ago. I nearly died, but I came out of that accident without a single scratch. The car was a total wreck. That's my near death experience. What do you think?
A couple of decades ago I met a young guy who had a car accident. He stated that he was somehow above his body and watched as his body was loaded into the ambulance!
He says that he met with angels or former humans while he was out of his body but he did not know who they were! He was only 15 when it happened and didn't know that many people who had passed on.
He says that he was transformed by his experience and we from being a rather lousy student in General subjects to taking Academic and getting A's. He also got so motivated that he ended up being assistant manager in a business in his spare time!
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