Hello all, first please forgive me if this is covered beyond the first 10 or so topics in this forum, as I think you can understand when I say I don't want to spend hours searching for an answer that may not be there.
Anyways, obviously people have a ton of different opinions on NDEs. Some people like Dr. Alexander claim that his own is proof of an afterlife. Other atheists either draw from their own experiences or others' where they died on the operating table/car crash etc. and don't remember anything; they basically experienced dreamless sleep. They then use this as evidence of nothing after death.
Now I would consider myself some kind of agnostic, who is open to the supernatural and in fact believes in ghosts and other paranormal possibilities. But let me tell you about why I have a problem with NDEs, and don't think they can be used as eveidence for or against the afterlife.
First off, does everyone here agree that as of the present, nobody can be brought back from the dead? Sure, you can be clinically dead and then revived, as this is when NDEs do or don't occur, but when one is brain dead/actually considered "dead" by a medical professional/coroner etc or they've been executed/murdered (you get the idea) that they can not be revived? I'm going to assume everyone does. (Big leap I know
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Sooooo, IMO when a person is revived then they weren't REALLY dead, so why would the presence of anything experienced in this "dead but not dead state" be considered evidence? Same thing if you don't experience anything, I've been put under for surgery before and didn't experience anything, but since I didn't actually die I don't think that's proof there isn't an afterlife.
Similar to drug experiences, I once smoked too much marijuana in one session and had a bad trip, where I seemed to transcend space and time. At one point in my paranoid state I had the thought I was going to die, and that God was real and started asking for forgiveness. But when I came down, I didn't count that as any kind of proof of God, as I know my brain was acting differently because I was high.