Post: #26

(11-14-2019 03:34 PM)Oberrheiner Wrote:  

(11-13-2019 03:25 PM)debeguiled Wrote:  My overall impression is that NDEs lead people to lose their fear of death.

That's for sure.
Death is sweet.
Do not fear it.

Funny thing is death is a non-experience and when you die you won't even know you're dead. It's just like going under forever.

Yet, it still terrifies me as a concept, in the same way that it does to imagine that I "emerged" without seemingly ever existing for billions of years before.

Post: #27

(11-14-2019 04:41 PM)Batman_ Wrote:  

(11-14-2019 03:34 PM)Oberrheiner Wrote:  

(11-13-2019 03:25 PM)debeguiled Wrote:  My overall impression is that NDEs lead people to lose their fear of death.

That's for sure.
Death is sweet.
Do not fear it.

Funny thing is death is a non-experience and when you die you won't even know you're dead. It's just like going under forever.

Yet, it still terrifies me as a concept, in the same way that it does to imagine that I "emerged" without seemingly ever existing for billions of years before.

Correct, for me personally its not the dying part I'm concerned about, it would be more the crap yourself in terror death throes that I have anxiety about if I have to deal with them.

There is just too great of a range of final moments to really plan for.
In my early working years it was industrial accidents with things like people having their midsections crushed and remaining fully conscious while pinned in equipment for many many minutes and not being happy about it at all. Some other guy was severed at the waist by a flying pipe and cursed the guy who's shift he had taken that day as his upper half lay expiring on the factory floor. Another 18 year old buried alive in a a shallow trench and asphyxiating. These people didn't know when they died, but I'm sure the terror of knowing that they were rapidly on their way was real.

Contrast that to my religious great grandparents who passed away calmly and peacefully in bed, at home, with family and hallmark movie esque last moments like asking for their bible, reading a few passages, smiling and then slipping away.

All events ended in death and rest until judgement (in my opinion) but the ending moments were quite different. Its not the death part that I have a concern for.

Post: #28

(11-14-2019 05:13 PM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  Correct, for me personally its not the dying part I'm concerned about, it would be more the crap yourself in terror death throes that I have anxiety about if I have to deal with them.

There is just too great of a range of final moments to really plan for.
In my early working years it was industrial accidents with things like people having their midsections crushed and remaining fully conscious while pinned in equipment for many many minutes and not being happy about it at all. Some other guy was severed at the waist by a flying pipe and cursed the guy who's shift he had taken that day as his upper half lay expiring on the factory floor. Another 18 year old buried alive in a a shallow trench and asphyxiating. These people didn't know when they died, but I'm sure the terror of knowing that they were rapidly on their way was real.

Contrast that to my religious great grandparents who passed away calmly and peacefully in bed, at home, with family and hallmark movie esque last moments like asking for their bible, reading a few passages, smiling and then slipping away.

All events ended in death and rest until judgement (in my opinion) but the ending moments were quite different. Its not the death part that I have a concern for.

I've had one too many panic attacks from edible pot where I genuinely thought I was going to die. Usually it came in the form of believing I was having a heart attack or something heart-related. Sometimes it was more intense, expecting imminent annihilation from an asteroid, or feeling as if the Universe itself was about to tear apart.

The feeling of imminent death of is utterly terrifying beyond words, even if you're suicidal. I find it annoying when people say they have no fear of death - well sure, you can't fear a non-experience. But take any of those people and have them jump off a skyscraper and I guarantee 99% of them will feel pure and utter terror during their descent, even knowing full well they are virtually guaranteed to die, it's simply too hard to wrap your head around it.

Post: #29

You can't claim that because you may fear death, others do as well. Some people are scared of heights, dogs, and the boogie man while others are not. It's on the individual.

Death is natural. You're born and then you die. Well at least this physical version of you. Your consciousness moves on to a different experience.

I don't see the need to try to stay in this physical world by trying to transfer your mind into some computer. It seems silly and quite disturbing. When its time to go, its time to go.

Post: #30

(11-14-2019 06:57 PM)Batman_ Wrote:  I've had one too many panic attacks from edible pot where I genuinely thought I was going to die. Usually it came in the form of believing I was having a heart attack or something heart-related. Sometimes it was more intense, expecting imminent annihilation from an asteroid, or feeling as if the Universe itself was about to tear apart.

The feeling of imminent death of is utterly terrifying beyond words, even if you're suicidal. I find it annoying when people say they have no fear of death - well sure, you can't fear a non-experience. But take any of those people and have them jump off a skyscraper and I guarantee 99% of them will feel pure and utter terror during their descent, even knowing full well they are virtually guaranteed to die, it's simply too hard to wrap your head around it.

Indeed.

It's one thing to mentally think about death, using your thoughts to try to grasp the concept, imagine it.
It's a Totally Other Thing to actually live it : to feel it in your gut, in your spine, in your heart, to be 100% sure it's happening Right Now.

Being confronted to the imminent annihilation of everything you are, is a feeling every man should be faced with, at least once in his life.
From my point of view, this helps put things in their right place (including our own self).

Also, taking a quick look behind the veil is a transforming experience.

Post: #31

(11-14-2019 07:45 PM)SilentOne Wrote:  You can't claim that because you may fear death, others do as well. Some people are scared of heights, dogs, and the boogie man while others are not. It's on the individual.

Death is natural. You're born and then you die. Well at least this physical version of you. Your consciousness moves on to a different experience.

I don't see the need to try to stay in this physical world by trying to transfer your mind into some computer. It seems silly and quite disturbing. When its time to go, its time to go.

My point was that even people who claim to be unafraid of death can still be terrified to go through the actual process of dying, which is not the same thing.

Also, I never said you should try to transfer your mind into a computer, I think it's pointless and futile.

Post: #32

(11-14-2019 10:24 PM)Batman_ Wrote:  

(11-14-2019 07:45 PM)SilentOne Wrote:  You can't claim that because you may fear death, others do as well. Some people are scared of heights, dogs, and the boogie man while others are not. It's on the individual.

Death is natural. You're born and then you die. Well at least this physical version of you. Your consciousness moves on to a different experience.

I don't see the need to try to stay in this physical world by trying to transfer your mind into some computer. It seems silly and quite disturbing. When its time to go, its time to go.

My point was that even people who claim to be unafraid of death can still be terrified to go through the actual process of dying, which is not the same thing.

Also, I never said you should try to transfer your mind into a computer, I think it's pointless and futile.

I agree but still not everyone is terrified of Death. Some people are just curious of the process.

Post: #33

I tend to think of the brain as an interface between this world and that from which we (our consciousness, or self, if you will) originate. Death is when the interface ceases to function, for whatever reason. The problem (scarey part) is the transition from a functioning interface to cessation.

I agree with other posters in that the use of certain hallucinogens are quite likely to cause malfunctions (controlled or not) in the interface. A hack of sorts, which allows certain barriers or, to use another computer analogy, firewalls to be temporarily bypassed. Thus the associated visions, trips, etc.

Thoughts?

Post: #34

I realized when my best friend died in a motorcycle accident that there are definitely things worse things than death. The docs said it happened so fast he probably had no idea - boom and then lights out in a millisecond. I'll take that over wasting slowly away from cancer or something else painful and unpleasant. A quick death would be preferred and merciful.

Thankfully we live in a post-horrible execution society. This one in particular sounds particularly excruciating:

Quote: Scaphism, also known as the boats...is an alleged ancient Persian method of execution...It entailed trapping the victim between two boats, feeding and covering them with milk and honey, and allowing them to fester and be devoured by insects and other vermin.

Quote: [The king] decreed that Mithridates should be put to death in boats; which execution is after the following manner: Taking two boats framed exactly to fit and answer each other, they lay down in one of them the malefactor that suffers, upon his back; then, covering it with the other, and so setting them together that the head, hands, and feet of him are left outside, and the rest of his body lies shut up within, they offer him food, and if he refuse to eat it, they force him to do it by pricking his eyes; then, after he has eaten, they drench him with a mixture of milk and honey, pouring it not only into his mouth, but all over his face. They then keep his face continually turned towards the sun; and it becomes completely covered up and hidden by the multitude of flies that settle on it. And as within the boats he does what those that eat and drink must needs do, creeping things and vermin spring out of the corruption and rottenness of the excrement, and these entering into the bowels of him, his body is consumed. When the man is manifestly dead, the uppermost boat being taken off, they find his flesh devoured, and swarms of such noisome creatures preying upon and, as it were, growing to his inwards. In this way Mithridates, after suffering for seventeen days, at last expired.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism

The humans of old were exceptionally brutal.

Post: #35

^ The pre-civilized life was barely worth living.

Post: #36

That Scaphism thing is truly horrible.

Also, clearly made up. There is exactly one Greek source for it, crediting to another Greek source - and that guy was a notorious liar. Then it got retold by credulous 'englightment' era people because to them everything Greco-Roman was not only amazing but definitely true.

It's like Cold War era Russians making up stuff about Americans to make them look bad - or Americans making stuff up about Iraqis throwing babies out of incubators.

And ancient Persia was not pre-civilized, but an actual civilization.

Post: #37

In Pastor Howard Storm's NDE, he first went to hell, was rescued, and spent three years in the afterlife asking Jesus every question he could think of. Before the experience, he was a hard partying, intellectually and artistically accomplished and proud atheist.

There are many many interviews with him available that highlight different parts of his experience, depending on what the interviewers ask. He has been interviewed by other Protestants, Catholics, New Agers, skeptics, Oprah, the whole gamut, and there is probably an interview by a person of your choice out there on Youtube if this one doesn't do it for you.

His experience has changed how I see Christianity. In some ways, I feel like I am following the Gospel According to Howard.

It doesn't have its effect on a particularly doctrinal level, rather Storm's account of his long conversation with Jesus has felt to me like someone took a rag and rubbed all the accumulated grime off a window and let me see things more clearly, see the intentions of Jesus as a person behind what's written in the Bible as well as what is taught in Christian doctrine. From what I have heard of him, it doesn't seem like he contradicts anything in the Bible in a deep way, so Protestants can listen to him, and Catholics can safely listen to him as well.

On the other hand, I am sure that any internet Orthodox intellectual could write a whole book on the myriad errors he makes and back it up with quotes from church fathers you have never heard of. Might be a waste of time for them.

I am not making an argument for anyone else feeling this way or seeing him this way. Obviously your mileage may vary.

I have watched or listened to hundreds of NDEs by every kind of person you could imagine, and none has had the effect that this one has, so it is here just to be shared with anyone who is interested.

If you can watch a video like this and think it is the result of a hallucination, a lack of oxygen to the brain, a squirt of a hormone to ease dying, or a dream, well, don't know what to tell you.

Also it should be noted that there is no evidence that this is a NDE in the sense that he was clinically dead when it happened. He may or may not have been.

If that makes a big difference to you, you will probably be unmoved by the things he learned.

Again, I am just sharing something that has meant a lot to me spiritually, and am not really putting out debate-bait.

I will share the videos and then shut up about it.

Post: #38

I've actually watched that before. The main answer is that we have no idea, but here's the real problem (beyond you wanting to believe it):

We know of far more people who were holier and more reliable. It takes humility to consider that.

I will admit I found a few things interesting, of course, I'm human! Particularly the comments he makes on "reincarnation" being silly, I think that's the word he even used. Maybe the most important question of all is, who cares? You know what the commandments are. Christ never said to focus on anything other than these, particularly the first two, upon which all others hang. He did tell us that we would be tempted, and we would be deceived, so watch with vigilance.

I write these things knowing that I fall short, frequently, all the time. And only God can help me --- if I am willing.

Post: #39

(11-22-2019 12:32 PM)Kid Twist Wrote:  I've actually watched that before. The main answer is that we have no idea, but here's the real problem (beyond you wanting to believe it):

Okay. That is the last time I respond to responses those videos.

Post: #40

Condescending isn't the right word.

Yes, you set yourself up for that.