Will near death experience accounts cause Christianity to find common ground with other religions?

Will near death experience accounts tend to unite Christianity and other religions?

  • yes

    Votes: 4 15.4%
  • no

    Votes: 17 65.4%
  • Perhaps somewhat

    Votes: 1 3.8%
  • I hope not

    Votes: 1 3.8%
  • I do hope so.

    Votes: 3 11.5%

  • Total voters
    26

DennisTate

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I am thinking that the answer to this question is Yes.....
because no matter what nation or belief system somebody has before their brush with death they often experience an out of the body experience......... a Life Review..... meeting previously deceased relatives in that out of the body state...... and afterward they tend to fear death much less.


2 Corinthians 12

I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up even to the third heaven.

3 And I know such a man (whether in the body, or apart from the body, I know not; God knoweth), 4 how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
 

DennisTate

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Near death experiences are often debunked, as far as I know.

But I personally take them seriously and I read both versions of Heaven is For Real and saw the movie as well. I highly recommend it but as the following poll shows........ the topic is controversial:

Friends of yours watch Heaven Is For Real and ask you about it?

Is Colton Burpo a credible witness?
Edit
  1. *
    Yes
    12 vote(s)
    48.0%

  2. No
    11 vote(s)
    44.0%

  3. I am not sure but I am looking into this.
    2 vote(s)
    8.0%
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DennisTate

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if anything, NDE's sound a lot like mushroom trips. So i don't put much stock in them. When your brain is deprived of oxygen, things can get a little weird.

Near death experiences can be induced in a number of ways. One of them is in fighter jet training extreme G-force devices.

My theory at this time is that the Jewish and Christian scriptures........... (or any and all scriptures for that matter).... are like metaphorical "old wine" but NDE accounts are like new wine and I believe are especially powerful tools for reacing skeptics.

Luke 5:39 "No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better."

The people who know their scriptures well..... tend to be very skeptical of NDE accounts.
 
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DennisTate

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if anything, NDE's sound a lot like mushroom trips. So i don't put much stock in them. When your brain is deprived of oxygen, things can get a little weird.

Does this quotation from an NDE remind you of the Buddhist idea of Hungry Ghosts?

Or of the state of the dead from many religious backgrounds?

Dr. George Ritchie's Near-Death Experience

b. His Guided Tour of the Earthbound Realm with Jesus

The following is the testimony of George Ritchie's tour of the Earthbound Realm: Then Jesus begins to take Ritchie on a journey through various realms of the afterlife. They fly toward a large city on Earth where they notice a group of assembly-line workers at work. They witnesses the spirit of a woman trying desperately to grab a cigarette from the workers who were oblivious to her presence. This woman had died severely addicted to cigarettes and was now cut off from the one thing she desperately desired most.



Ritchie realizes how the spirits in these realms immediately know the thoughts of other spirits around them. This is the reason they tend to group together with other spirits. It is too threatening to be around others who knew and disagreed with their thoughts.



Jesus leads Ritchie to a house somewhere on Earth where he is shown the spirit of a young man following his living family members around and begging them for forgiveness. But the family members are completely unaware of his presence. Jesus tells Ritchie the young man committed suicide and is "chained to every consequence of his act."



They then traveled to a bar somewhere on Earth which was filled with sailors drinking heavily. Spirits surrounded the sailors as they tried desperately, and in vain, to grasp the shot glasses to get a drink. Other spirits tried to control the sailors' alcoholic behavior. Ritchie learns these are the spirits of people who died still having a severe alcoholic addiction which went beyond the physical. He is bewildered as he observes one of the sailors passing out causing the sailor's protective aura surrounding him to crack open. When it does, it allows a spirit to scramble into the sailor's unconscious body. This scene was repeated over and over.
 
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Robban

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I am not familiar with the concept.
Just the "Near death experience" makes me wonder what they mean.

What is dead is dead,
what is alive is alive.

Sounds more like a halfway house.

But ascending in the "spirit"is possible.

But would hardly call it neardeath.
 
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DennisTate

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I am not familiar with the concept.
Just the "Near death experience" makes me wonder what they mean.

What is dead is dead,
what is alive is alive.

Sounds more like a halfway house.

But ascending in the "spirit"is possible.

But would hardly call it neardeath.

One of my favourite near death experience accounts is that of Rabbi Alon Anava. He was a very, very Secular unbelieving Israeli - American until his NDE when he was 28. Now he is highly observant Orthodox Jewish.

I personally wonder if Matthew chapter 4 implies that Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus - Issa may perhaps have had a near death experience while doing an extended fast. There are many similarities between the teachings of Rabbi Alon Anava with Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus.

They both really warn their listeners to avoid going into the afterlife having done no major mitzvah's.
 
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DennisTate

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I don't buy stock in NDEs and I'm sure it's just confirmation bias for those who do.

But do you know of a better way to explain what was going on behind the scenes during the Holocaust than what was shown to former Atheist and near death experiencer Howard Storm Ph. D?

"I asked how God could let the Holocaust of World War II happen. We were transported to a railway station as a long train of freight cars was being unloaded of its human cargo. The guards were screaming and beating the people into submission. The people were Jewish men, women, and children. Exhausted from hunger and thirst, they were totally disoriented from the ordeal of being rounded up and sent on a long journey to an unknown destination. They believed that they were going to work camps, and that their submission to the brutality of the guards was the only way to survive.

We went to the area where the selection process was taking place and heard the guards talking about "the Angel Maker." We went to the place the guards were referring to as "the Angel Maker," which was a series of ovens. I saw piles of naked corpses being loaded into the ovens, and I began to cry. Jesus said to me, "These are the people God loves." Then he said, "Look up." Rising out of the smoke of the chimneys, I saw hundreds of people being met by thousands of angels taking them up into the sky. There was great joy in the faces of the people, and there appeared to be no trace of a memory of the horrendous suffering they had just endured. How ironic that the guards sarcastically called the ovens "the Angel Maker."

I asked how God could allow this to happen. They told me that this was not God's will. This was an abomination to God. God wants this never to happen again. This was the sacrifice of an innocent people to whom God had given the law to be an example, a light, to the rest of the world. This Holocaust was breaking God's heart. The anguish that Jesus was suffering at the slaughter of his people was too much for me to bear and I begged that we leave this place. I will never forget this: his anguish at this horror and what it represents. This was one of the low points in human history."

I asked, Why does God let things like this happen? They told me that God was very unhappy with the course of human history and was going to intervene to change the world. God had watched us sink to depths of depravity and cruelty at the very time that he was giving us the instruments to make the world a godlier world. God had intervened in the world many times before, but this time God was going to change the course of human events." (Howard Storm, My Descent Into Death, page 42,43)
 
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TheOldWays

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AskTheFamily

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I don't believe so. I had a lot to write about this. But I will keep it short: no, especially since greater proofs and clear evidence doesn't unite humans, nor do people leave their ways due to convincing evidence. This is proven in the Sunni-Shia issue for example where the proofs are plenty one way and all conjecture the other way, yet conjecture wins.
 
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Robban

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One of my favourite near death experience accounts is that of Rabbi Alon Anava. He was a very, very Secular unbelieving Israeli - American until his NDE when he was 28. Now he is highly observant Orthodox Jewish.

I personally wonder if Matthew chapter 4 implies that Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus - Issa may perhaps have had a near death experience while doing an extended fast. There are many similarities between the teachings of Rabbi Alon Anava with Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus.

They both really warn their listeners to avoid going into the afterlife having done no major mitzvah's.

I am uncurable believer in reincarnation of the soul,
which would mean being sent down again if I have missed any, but the greatest is giving charity, because it is the only one that involves the whole of ones being.

Preparing for bed, waking up, preparing mentally for work, going off to work,working hard to give the employer value for miney, coming back from work and all the rest of it, making dinner etc.
No need to ramble here what making a living is about.

Then donating 10-20% plus any help someone may require.

So charity is a get out of jail card.

As an aside I had a visit or if I was lifted, it was over in a short time.

In the middle of the Indian ocean, of all places, in the middle
of the night, alone as high up you can get, on the what is called,"Monkey island".

I was shown a book and books but they were taken away before I had a chance to read anything.

I did not tell anyone, they would have thought I had gone nuts.
 
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dlamberth

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In the middle of the Indian ocean, of all places, in the middle
of the night, alone as high up you can get, on the what is called,"Monkey island".
When reading Monkey Island in the Indian Ocean, what immediately came to mind was Hanuman.
 
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DennisTate

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I don't believe so. I had a lot to write about this. But I will keep it short: no, especially since greater proofs and clear evidence doesn't unite humans, nor do people leave their ways due to convincing evidence. This is proven in the Sunni-Shia issue for example where the proofs are plenty one way and all conjecture the other way, yet conjecture wins.

Here is a particular NDE account that should help some Christians and some Muslims to have something to talk about?

Emanuel Tuwagirairmana's Near-Death Experience


Emanuel could hear the conversation of people in the room where his body was. They were saying, "Oh, the saved man has died!"

Jesus took Emanuel back to heaven and showed him a beautiful city. Emanuel said this was a very beautiful city with houses he has never seen anywhere in the world. There was a lake there and he was told he could not go across it.



He was surprised to see, across the lake, some of his friends who had died in Rwanda including a Muslim. Emanuel was surprised he did not see some devout Christians with whom he had been serving God with. He asked Christ how a Muslim could be in heaven. Jesus told him that as this Muslim was dying, he called upon the name of Jesus, and Jesus saved him from hell. Then Emanuel asked him why a certain devout Christian lady who had served God with him in Rwanda was not in heaven. Jesus replied it was because of her refusal to forgive those who had refused to visit her in the hospital when she was sick. Emanuel mentioned another name and Jesus told him that the reason that person was not in heaven was that he stole money which Christians had contributed to assist the sick.

Emanuel then saw a very brilliant light across the lake. Jesus told Emanuel he could not approach the throne of God since his time to leave the Earth had not yet come.

Emanuel was then shown hell which he said was very filthy. Those in hell are made to work like slaves all the time.
 
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awitch

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But do you know of a better way to explain what was going on behind the scenes during the Holocaust than what was shown to former Atheist and near death experiencer Howard Storm Ph. D?

Chemical, neurological, and physiological changes in the brain when under extreme stress.
 
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DennisTate

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Chemical, neurological, and physiological changes in the brain when under extreme stress.

OK... good point....... but I want to give my kids evidence that there is a future for this earth and this is one of the clearest explanations that I have read in modern English. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the minor prophets make many similar statements to what former Atheist Howard Storm was shown during his NDE........ but I really like the clarity that he writes with.

Reverend Howard Storm's Near-Death Experience

The image of the future that they gave me then, and it was their image, not one that I created, surprised me. My image had previously been sort of like Star Wars, where everything was space age, plastics, and technology.



The future that they showed me was almost no technology at all. What everybody, absolutely everybody, in this euphoric future spent most of their time doing was raising children. The chief concern of people was children, and everybody considered children to be the most precious commodity in the world.



And when a person became an adult, there was no sense of anxiety, nor hatred, nor competition.



There was this enormous sense of trust and mutual respect. If a person, in this view of the future, became disturbed, then the community of people all cared about the disturbed person falling away from the harmony of the group. Spiritually, through prayer and love, the others would elevate the afflicted person.



What people did with the rest of their time was that they gardened, with almost no physical effort. They showed me that plants, with prayer, would produce huge fruits and vegetables.



People, in unison, could control the climate of the planet through prayer. Everybody would work with mutual trust and the people would call the rain, when needed, and the sun to shine.



Animals lived with people, in harmony.

What I bolded sure reminds me of the last verses of Malachi 4


Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come.

6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
 
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DennisTate

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I am uncurable believer in reincarnation of the soul,
which would mean being sent down again if I have missed any, but the greatest is giving charity, because it is the only one that involves the whole of ones being.

Preparing for bed, waking up, preparing mentally for work, going off to work,working hard to give the employer value for miney, coming back from work and all the rest of it, making dinner etc.
No need to ramble here what making a living is about.

Then donating 10-20% plus any help someone may require.

So charity is a get out of jail card.

As an aside I had a visit or if I was lifted, it was over in a short time.

In the middle of the Indian ocean, of all places, in the middle
of the night, alone as high up you can get, on the what is called,"Monkey island".

I was shown a book and books but they were taken away before I had a chance to read anything.

I did not tell anyone, they would have thought I had gone nuts.

There are some intriguing statements in the Christian Bible that have caused many of us to ask some deeper questions.

John 9:2 "And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?"

Matthew 11


But wherefore went ye out? to see a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet.

10 This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, Who shall prepare thy way before thee.

11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force.

13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

14 And if ye are willing to receive [it,] this is Elijah, that is to come.

15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the marketplaces, who call unto their fellows 17 and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn.

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a demon.

19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! And wisdom is justified by her works.
 
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Robban

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Ezekiel 18 crystal clear.

Ezekiel 18:20

Fantastic chapter it came with healing under it,s wings.

(concerning John 9:2)

not exact the same but, did not his disciples not know?
 
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DennisTate

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Ezekiel 18 crystal clear.

Ezekiel 18:20

Fantastic chapter it came with healing under it,s wings.

(concerning John 9:2)

not exact the same but, did not his disciples not know?

The people of his time period sure seem to have had some different ideas on these topics than most of us Christians have in 2018.

Matthew 16:13


When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
 
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