could this be the afterlife?

[anti_nietzsche]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Reynolds'_NDE

Could this be how the afterlife really looks like?

I realize there have also been near death experiences where people, allegedly, experienced something horrible. But the very most of such experiences tell of a tunnel of sorts, and of a bright light.

I also had a dream about Heaven once which I entered through a shaft.

[martincisneros]

I'm just totally surprised with as clear as the Bible is about everything, that Near Death Experiences are able to claim the level of authority among so-called Bible believing Christians that they're able to claim.  2Peter chapter 1 says that the Written Word is of more value than eye-witness testimony.  Yet, you can preach UR for 8hrs straight and have someone nearly convinced and yet one Near Death Experience where someone saw something hot in the distance can seemingly nearly instantly undo all of your work with that soul with the truth of God's Word.  Because Near Death Experiences obviously generally occur when someone has been compromised, as in an injury, a chemical issue, and/or in the midst of surgery -- they should claim much less authority than other forms of eye-witness testimony.  But for some reason, they're sensationalized way beyond even what's remotely plausible.  One Near Death Experience and suddenly you're an expert on love, relationships, heaven/hell, God, angels, the afterlife, the judgment to come, the past, the present, the future, etc.  But after a Near Death Experience there's the remote chance you may have less going for you "mentally," than previously if any brain cells have been compromised through oxygen deprivation or a lack of other chemical or electrical activity in the body.  People are just so gullible and so ready to grasp for anything that smacks of the afterlife.  Even if everything that someone saw in a Near Death Experience were what they genuinely saw, that doesn't mean that they previously had the theological perspective so that they can come back and make authoritative claims about the eternity of hell torments, etc., as is so often the case with these types of stories.  Suddenly everybody's a guru that's had a konk on the head! :wacko2:

[fire walker]

One thing positive that might be said about near death experiences is in the case of an athiest of which I had been aquainted with, my next door nieghbor who most firmly believed that there was absolutely no spiritual realm, that anything
spiritual in teachings or preaching was just so much hog wash, religious fables and myths, if science can't porve it, if you can't see it, taste it, smell it, touch it or hear it with the physical senses it doesn't exsist he would say, when we die that is the end of life he would claim and so thus he believed
that our short time aloted to us here in the natural flesh was the entire extent of a mans life weather it be one year or three score and ten or more.

Well one day he was in a very bad car crash, in the news it was reported: "that a speeding motorist was passing a big semi truck  on a blind corner" and hit my nieghbors car head on,  after the accident and home from hospital my nieghbor said he remembered being out above the car looking down at the accident and saw the emergency workers and medics loading his body into an ambulance, he then remembered being pulled down from a place of brightness and light into a dark tunnel toward his body and then he remembered no more until he awoke in recovery room at a hospital, after about 9 days and some physical tharapy he came home and later told me of these expertiences.

After some time at home he called to me from his yard one day and he wanted to discuss this experience with me, so I went over and he told me about it,  he said now I am convinced there is God, there is a spiritual world, there is more than just a  natural body, he wanted to then study all he could about the gospel of Christ and the things about the hope of the ressurection
to life begining now and after our natural death. A rather dramaticly sudden change for someone who had been athiest.

This was many years ago but I do know that he was NO LONGER in bondage to an athiestic spririt of unbelief, his entire outlook on life had been turned upside down and for the better in this life. This man by the way was humbled by the experience, and did not use it to boast in any authority on spiritual matters, all it did was draw him in spirit to see the things of God that he claimed previously did not exsist. 

Personaly I think that God uses many various circumstances and things in peoples lives to eventualy draw them in Christ and until the time that he does no one can come to this place in their life  on their own and just maybe  God used this experience as a  way of drawing this Athiestic man to Christ in this near death out of body experience in my POV

Peace,
Fire Walker.

[fire walker]

well no rerplies on that post, so I am asking this, do you not believe God can change an athiests heart through such things as NDEs or OBEs? maybe this is how some folks are being made awake to the fact that there is more to life than the natural flesh or just this temporary life in this world (age)?

Like I pointed out in my previous post my nieghbor years ago was a staunch athiest until his auto accident on the highway where he was hit head on by some speeding motorist who was passing a long Semi truck
while going around a blind curve in the road, the Semi driver called on his CB radio and got emergency responders called out to the scene in time to save my nieghbors life and get him to hospital.  My nieghbor then had an ND experience while in the hospital that completely changed his life from denial and unbelief to belief in the spiritual part of life. It appeared to me that God used this experience to draw ( drag) this man to Christ. 

All I am pointing out here from my personal POV is that God uses the things  that we pass through in this world, in sickness or in health, negative or positive,  for a ultimately positive  result through an illness, a close call to dying, NDE or OBE.

Peace,
Fire Walker

[Molly]

I agree with you firewalker.  First of all, I believe NDE's are real. 

We are the first generation to experience these on a large scale because of modern medicine.

They have been studued and found to be similar and credible.

The ones that really knock me over are from small children who have no reason to lie and no theological baggage to taint the experience.

I think once you experience the other dimension, you are never the same.

Most people are changed for the positive.   Most have positive or neutral experiences.

Many are met by loved ones who predeceased them.

I would never seek out these experiences, but if they are handed to you, they are invariably very believable.

[sheila]

 Hi Firewalker

    The whole creation[seen and unseen] it at His disposable..to teach,rebuke,edify...as He wills.  Some are saved through fear[NDE'S where they

   see judgement on kingdom of darkness] and some through mercy. For this reason it was written...to them our message is the odour od death,but to us the odour of life


       The gospel of condemnation and eternal hellfire is preached to those for whom it is prepared for[even the devil and his demons]  but the gospel

    of mercy through Jesus Christ is preached through vessels of mercy..and the free gift of eternallife given to all mankind..


    Some are saved through fear[of being partakers with the demons in eternal judgement/condemnation/corruptible image/old man of sin]Those being shown

    this judgement  may be saved through fear

  Some are saved through mercy[free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ]  It appears to me..that your freind is one of the latter/mercy....and him

  partaking of this free gift has made him want to know more about HIM through which it comes

    It must be made clear...that it is the desire of satan and the demonic..that mankind also share in their eternal judgement. But through Jesus Christ

   that will not occur...for though their outer man perish[corruptible image] yet their new man in Christ is renewed daily[daily sacrifices].