CNN is talking about near-death experiences. Could their resurrection of the Rapture Index be far

[valerief]

behind?

:banghead:

[Union Thug]

1. Next up...a repeat of CNN's exclusive coverage of Jesus in Cat Fur

What joke these guys have become.

[valerief]

2. Yeah. I just switched to CNN so I wouldn't have to look at Mitchell on MSNBC. nt

[leftyladyfrommo]

3. I had a near death experience. It was very real.

Was it God? or was it just some brain reaction - can't say for sure. But it sure was real at the time it happened.

[valerief]

5. I'll admit, it's an interesting topic and deserves an in-depth, investigative

report on teevee, not a "news" blip on a "news" show. It's an opportunity for them to bring in the idea of god, when they should be reporting news.

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. Yea. Why is it on a news program.

It's not news. The concept has been around since the beginning of time.

It does make for an interesting debate. People who have actually had a near death experience are all amazed by it. I was. Got to say that after that happened I was never very afraid of death. It was the most amazing, completely free feeling.

[TomInTib]

6. I know how you feel.

In our community, we have many open-water sailors, extreme skiers, divers, you name it.

I have a pretty good circle of friends who have had near-death experiences, and it is really something to realize just how many life-parallels (I just made up that term) we have in common (post-NDE).

I have had several. Snake-bite, drowning, serious illness (twice on that one).

[leftyladyfrommo]

8. I just had one - car wreck.

I have to say it was kind of life changing for me. I don't want to sound like an idiot about it. But it was really something.

[TomInTib]

10. "Sound like an idiot"?

No way, ma'am.

One thing that we all can agree on is that none of us ever looked at life the same way we did before whatever happened to us.

There is a palpable bond, a true kinship, between pretty much everyone I know who has experienced what we experienced. Even those of us who have nothing else in common can feel it.

As a matter of fact, my girlfriend (who, by the way, grew up in Norway, north of the Circle, in a family of nomadic reindeer herders) said to me, "You have had a out-of-body, near-death experience" on our second date. Not a question, but a flat statement.

She knew, because she had, too.

Tom

[Union Thug]

12. I do not want to demean your experience, but I'm curious...

First of all, I've never had a near death experience so I have no idea what it's like. I'm a clean slate on this. But I have had many psychadelic experiences, some of which involved images and explorations of death (lsd, mushrooms, salvia - each being slightly different - salvia being the most powerful). My point is that these are the results of brain chemistry and they feel very real. Do you attribute your experience to chemistry/physical effects of the body shutting down, or to some spiritual experience external to the subject? If the latter, can you explain why?

The subject fascinates me, but, as an atheist, I have some predjudices.

Thanks!

[leftyladyfrommo]

13. It's all right. I have no explanations for what happened.

Some scientists claimed that if they stimulated the brain in certain places they could create near death experiences.

I have no answers. But I also don't really question it. It wasn't like a drug hallucination at all. It was just as real as me sitting here typing at the computer. I was just there flying upward in a warm white light. And I was completely free. Have never felt that way before or after.

I have had some dreams that were way more than dreams. Strangely they were animals that I had loved that came back to let me know they were all right. I was so grateful. I had been so worried about them.

[leftyladyfrommo]

14. Native people have no problem with these kinds of experiences.

It is us with our scientific backgrounds that have problems with them.

[tama]

9. NDEs

offer also empirical evidence against the materialist paradigm, that mind causally reduses to brain/classical mechanics.

[damntexdem]

4. But near-death experiences are the major news stories nowadays:

the McPain campaign, the U.S. economy, Afghanistan, inaction on Global Warming. The list goes on.

[tomg]

11. Near-death experiences? Are they talking about

the McCain campaign or the economy? Oh, Sorry. They meant coming back from death, not just about dead.